The 2026 Emmy Awards: here are the winners – ‘The Pitt’ and ‘Widow’s Bay’ come out on top

The Pitt has won the Emmy for Best Drama Series for the second year running, whilst Widow’s Bay won Best Comedy Series, taking home a total of six awards, whilst the statuettes for the Best Actors were won mainly by Matthew Rhys and Noah Wyle. These are the highlights coming in from the Peacock Theatre in Los Angeles, where the traditional gala celebrating American television productions was held last night.

It comes as no surprise, but was a foregone conclusion: the second series of The Pitt has won the Emmy for Best Drama Series, adding this statuette to the one it won in 2025 for its debut season. The HBO series, set amongst the aisles of an A&E department, also takes home an award for its lead actor Noah Wyle (this too is a repeat win). ‘Beyond the stories in each individual episode – which sometimes make you look away (due to their raw realism) – we’re telling the story of a community of people trying to do the right thing. It’s a crucial moment for portraying human suffering, a time when you don’t know what to believe and reality surpasses fiction,” said showrunner R. Scott Gemmill, surrounded by the cast and executive producer John Wells, as he accepted the award.

Widow’s Bay, on the other hand, won Best Comedy Series of the Year, bringing the 78th Emmy Awards to a close. Hollywood crowned the Apple TV show – about the eccentric inhabitants of a haunted island in New England – over its rivals. Praised by critics for a surprisingly original concept in a landscape dominated by reboots and revivals, the comedy-horror series created by Katie Dippold bagged 14 awards at this year’s ‘TV Oscars’, shattering the record of 13 set by The Studio in 2025.

Matthew Rhys won the award for Best Lead Actor in a Miniseries for the second season of The Beast in Me on Netflix, as well as the award for Best Lead Actor in a Comedy Series for Widow’s Bay. This is an all-time record: no actor had ever won Best Lead Actor for two different series at the same awards ceremony.

Jean Smart has won her fifth consecutive Emmy for her leading role in the comedy series Hacks, the eighth ‘TV Oscar’ she has taken home in her career – an all-time record. The 75-year-old actress was greeted with a standing ovation when she took to the stage. Allison Janney, star of the Netflix series The Diplomat, won the Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. A few minutes later, Rhea Seehorn won the award for Best Leading Actress in a Drama Series for her role as the writer Carol Sturka in the Apple TV series Pluribus.