The 78th annual Primetime Emmy Award nominations were announced last month, and once again eyebrows were raised, for better or for worse. For example, hearts were warmed when Back to the Future star Michael J. Fox won his first nomination since 2016, earning one of nine nominations for the Apple TV hit Shrinking in the Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category.
However, there were plenty of snubs also catching attention, such as another year going by without a major category nod for the prolific Taylor Sheridan, despite expectations that Landman would break his Emmys curse. Despite controversy overshadowing the final series, it was also expected that Sydney Sweeney would score an acting nod for Euphoria, although that was not meant to be. Nevertheless, the Emmys also got plenty right this year, including these great 2026 Emmy-nominated shows that are actually worth the hype.
‘The Pitt’ (2025–Present)
Medical dramas have been popular for a long time, yet were often seen as formulaic, especially following the huge success of Grey’s Anatomy. Then came The Pitt, which changed all that with one of the most innovative, timely takes on the genre yet. Tackling the daily lives of healthcare professionals in a Pittsburgh hospital, each episode of The Pitttakes place during exactly one hour of a character’s shift.
A moving discussion of the most relevant aspects of modern health, from the horrors of loss to the minutiae of mental wellbeing, The Pitt leaves no stone unturned in its quest to bring the beating heart of the real industry to our screens. The series was the biggest winner out of this year’s nominations, scoring a whopping 25 nods. Not only did it receive repeat nominations for Outstanding Drama Series and Lead Actor in a Drama Series, much of the supporting cast became first-time nominees, like Patrick Ball, Taylor Dearden, and Fiona Dourif.
‘Widow’s Bay’ (2026–Present)
Wyck Crawford (Stephen Root) in ‘Widow’s Bay’Image via Apple TV
The pitch-perfect blend of horror and comedy that permeated through the titular town afflicted by a centuries-old curse in Widow’s Bay has been 2026’s biggest surprise. Sure, Apple TV releasing yet another 10/10 series isn’t a shock, but the release of Widow’s Bay had flown under the radar, that is, until reviews came out and people quickly realized this was one of the year’s best gems.
Led by Matthew Rhys as the mayor of the island community, in one of his best roles in years, this eccentric series is a fresh addition to the streaming rotation of 2026; its cast includes the likes of Stephen Root, Dale Dickey, Kate O’Flynn, and Hamish Linklater. The show’s success at the Emmy nominations is a welcome reminder that it isn’t always the obvious choices that get the recognition they deserve. The series was the most-nominated of any new show this year, earning 19 nods.
‘A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms’ (2026–Present)
Dexter Sol Ansell as Egg standing in a hooded cloak in A Knight of the Seven KingdomsImage via HBO
A prequel to Game of Thrones that adapts George R. R. Martin‘s novella series Tales of Dunk and Egg, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is one of the most notable successes coming out of this year’s nominee announcement. In total, the show received nine nominations, including for Outstanding Drama Series, Outstanding Cinematography, and Outstanding Special Visual Effects.
This success is all the more important considering the controversial second season of House of the Dragon, which preceded it, with A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms able to dust off the Game of Thrones cobwebs and remind the fanbase why they love Westeros so much. Despite the lack of dragons, the duo of Ser Duncan (Peter Claffey) and Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell) is exactly what the fanbase needed. Without a doubt, one of the best shows of 2026 so far, this is a refreshing reminder that light and shade are key to narrative triumph.
‘Margo’s Got Money Troubles’ (2026–Present)
Elle Fanning in Margo’s Got Money Troubles Episode 6Image via Apple TV
Another hit for Apple TV in 2026, and one that dominated the streaming charts throughout its acclaimed run, is Margo’s Got Money Troubles. An adaptation of Rufi Thorpe’s bestseller of the same name, the series continues Elle Fanning‘s remarkable run of acclaimed performances, as she stars as the titular Margo, who turns to OnlyFans for support after falling pregnant with her English professor’s baby.
Although some shows should be praised for their timelessness, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a perfect example of a series elevated by the year in which it was released. Brilliantly timely and featuring a stellar supporting cast, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Nick Offerman, and Greg Kinnear, the series earned eight nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Margo’s Got Money Problems is such a hit that it even earned itself a Season 2 renewal.
Collider Exclusive · TV Medicine Quiz Which Fictional Hospital Would You Work Best In? The Pitt · ER · Grey’s Anatomy · House · Scrubs
Five hospitals. Five completely different ways medicine goes sideways on television — brutal, chaotic, romantic, brilliant, and ridiculous. Only one of them is the ward your instincts were built for. Eight questions will figure out exactly where you belong.
🚨The Pitt
🏥ER
💉Grey’s
🔬House
🩺Scrubs
01
A critical patient comes through the door. What’s your first instinct? Medicine under pressure reveals who you actually are.
02
Why did you go into medicine in the first place? The honest answer says more about you than the one you’d give in an interview.
03
What do you actually want from the people you work with? Who you want beside you under pressure is who you are.
04
You lose a patient you fought hard to save. How do you carry it? Every doctor who’s worked a long shift has had to answer this question.
05
How would your colleagues describe the way you work? Your reputation on the floor is usually more accurate than your self-image.
06
How do you feel about hospital protocol and procedure? Every institution has rules. What you do with them is a choice.
07
What does this job cost you personally? Nobody works in medicine without paying a price. What’s yours?
08
At the end of a long shift, what keeps you coming back? The answer to this question is the most honest thing about you.
Your Assignment Has Been Made You Belong In…
Your answers have pointed to one fictional hospital above all others. This is the ward your instincts, your temperament, and your particular brand of dysfunction were built for.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center
The Pitt
You are built for the most unsparing version of emergency medicine television has ever shown — one that puts you inside a single fifteen-hour shift and doesn’t let you look away.
You need your work to be real, not romanticised — meaning over drama, honesty over aesthetics.
You find purpose inside the work itself, not in the chaos surrounding it.
You’ve made peace with the fact that this job takes from you constantly, and gives back in ways that are harder to name.
Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center demands exactly that kind of person — and you would not want to be anywhere else.
County General Hospital, Chicago
ER
You are the person who keeps the whole floor running — not the most brilliant in the room, but possibly the most essential.
You show up, do the work, absorb the losses, and come back the next day without needing the job to be anything other than what it is.
You care about patients as individual human beings, not as cases to solve or dramas to live through.
You believe in the system even when it fails you — and you understand that emergency medicine is about holding the line just long enough.
ER is television about endurance. You have it.
Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital, Seattle
Grey’s Anatomy
You came to medicine with your whole self — your ambition, your emotions, your relationships, your history — and you have never quite managed to leave any of it at the door.
You feel things fully and form deep attachments to the people you work with.
Your personal and professional lives are permanently, chaotically entangled — and that entanglement drives both your greatest disasters and your most remarkable saves.
You understand that extraordinary medicine often happens at the intersection of clinical skill and profound human connection.
It’s messy at Grey Sloan. You would not have it any other way.
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, NJ
House
You are drawn to the problem above everything else — the symptom that doesn’t fit, the diagnosis hiding underneath the obvious one.
You’re not primarily motivated by the patient as a person — though you are capable of caring, even if you’d deny it.
You work best when the stakes are highest and the standard answer is wrong.
Princeton-Plainsboro exists to house one extraordinary, impossible mind — and everyone around that mind is there because they’re smart enough to keep up.
The only way forward here is to think harder than everyone else in the room. That is exactly what you do.
Sacred Heart Hospital, California
Scrubs
You understand that medicine is tragic and absurd in almost equal measure — and that the only sane response is to hold both of those things at the same time.
You are warm, self-aware, and funnier than most people in your field.
You use humour to get through terrible moments — and at Sacred Heart, that’s not a flaw, it’s a survival strategy.
You lean on the people around you and let them lean back. The laughter and the grief are genuinely inseparable here.
Scrubs is a show about learning to become someone worthy of the job. You are still very much in the middle of that process — which is exactly right.
‘Ocean with David Attenborough’ (2025)
David Attenborough for his Ocean documentaryImage via National Geographic
It isn’t just fictional shows celebrated at TV’s most prestigious ceremony, with one of factual entertainment’s very best contributors even breaking an Emmys record this year. David Attenborough, the greatest nature filmmaker of all time, took home another two nominations this year, making him the oldest nominee in Primetime Emmy history at 100-years-old.
Attenborough isn’t slowing down anytime soon, with 2025’s Ocean with David Attenborough one of his finest shows in years. The great man plunges into the depths of the Earth’s most unexplored realm, emphasizing its vital role in the safety and progression of our planet, but not shying away from the many problems that surround it today. But, as all Attenborough content is, the series bursts with hope, reminding us that the battle to save the planet is far from lost.
‘Spider-Noir’ (2026–Present)
Nicolas Cage and Karen Rodriguez in Spider-NoirImage via Prime Video
As Tom Holland‘s recent record-breaking return as Peter Parker in Brand New Dayhas illustrated, people simply can’t get enough of the Spider-Manfranchise. Before Brand New Day was making box office history with the highest-grossing opening weekend ever, Prime Video delivered one of the finest new shows of 2026 with Spider-Noir, a spin-off of the animated Spider-Verse films (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse).
Slick, stylish, and packed with gripping mystery, Spider-Noir impressed both audiences and critics, including Collider’s Aidan Kelly, who awarded the series 7/10 in his review. Key to the series’ triumph was a tone-perfect lead performance from Oscar winner Nicolas Cage as 1930s New York Private Investigator Ben Reilly, with his battles against crime and his own personal demons making for encapsulating, oddly nostalgic viewing. Cage is one of several famous faces adding to the grandeur of the show, with Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li, Karen Rodriguez, Abraham Popoola, Jack Huston, and Brendan Gleeson also featuring. Spider-Noir was the most-nominated Prime Video series at this year’s Emmys with a total of 11 nods.
‘Wednesday’ (2022–Present)
Jenna Ortega as Wednesday and Emma Myers as Enid in Season 2, Episode 6 of WednesdayImage via Netflix
Much of the focus when discussing Emmy nominations is put on those with nods in the main categories (Outstanding Series, Outstanding Performance, etc.). However, there are also many technical categories worthy of note, with Netflix’s Wednesday one of the best success stories from this year’s nominations in the technicals this year, earning a nod for costumes, hairstyling, production design, makeup, and more.
Jenna Ortega‘s return to Nevermore Academy as everyone’s favorite nihilistic teen was one of the must-watch shows of 2025, not just because it took three years for the second season. The series might not be the most polished, but what it lacks in narrative nuance it makes up for in visual genius, which will come as no surprise when considering Tim Burton’s involvement behind the camera. Too bad fans might be waiting a little longer for Season 3.
