Emmys 2025: Who is nominated
Los Angeles — If the Television Academy were a heart-rate monitor, Tuesday morning’s 77th Emmy nomination pulse would have spiked off the chart: Apple TV+’s mind-bending workplace thriller “Severance” led all programs with a staggering 27 nods, one short of the all-time drama record. Behind it, HBO Max’s Gotham-noir limited series “The Penguin” snapped up 24, while the Hollywood-insider satire “The Studio” and the sun-drenched chaos of “The White Lotus” tied at 23, matching “The Bear”’s historic 2024 haul for most nominations ever by a comedy
This year’s list is less a gentle refresh and more a blood transfusion. First-time nominees range from 83-year-old Harrison Ford—finally an Emmy contender for his turn in the gentle therapy comedy “Shrinking”—to 15-year-old Owen Cooper, the youngest performer ever nominated in the supporting-actor category for Netflix’s limited series “Adolescence”
Between those poles sit Martin Scorsese and Ron Howard, both earning
acting nominations for walking on-camera roles in “The Studio” after
decades behind the lensHBO Max topped the platform tally with a record 142 total nominations, followed by Netflix at 120 and Apple TV+ at 81. Disney+’s “Andor” and Hulu’s medical sleeper-hit “The Pitt” muscled their way into the best-drama octet, proving that weekly release schedules—once thought antiquated—can still build the kind of cultural crescendo the algorithms have trouble manufacturing overnight.
What drives an Emmy wave? Data from the TV Academy show a 31 % jump in voter turnout this year, the largest since online balloting began. Analysts at Parrot Analytics note that “Severance” season two generated a 48 % spike in global demand within 72 hours of release—an acceleration curve reminiscent of viral outbreaks more than traditional prestige rollouts. Meanwhile, the surprise rebound of “Survivor” in the reality-competition category may owe less to nostalgia than to a strategic shift: the long-running contest recently adopted biometric heart-rate monitors worn by castaways, turning physiological stress into a new layer of game theory that hooked younger viewers.
Final-round voting runs August 18–27, with the Creative Arts ceremonies September 6–7 and the main show, hosted by comedian Nate Bargatze, airing live on CBS and Paramount+ September 14.
If “Severance” can convert its 27 nominations into even half as many wins, it will break the modern record for the most-decorated single season. But history whispers that volume does not guarantee victory—just ask “Game of Thrones,” which once walked in with 32 nods and left with 12 statues. Come September, will the Academy reward the riskiest storytelling or default to the familiar comfort of “The Bear” and “Hacks”? In other words: when the envelope opens, whose heartbeat will the microphone pick up first?
