'Game of Thrones,' 'People vs. OJ Simpson' Lead Emmy Nominations

07.14.2016

HBO's Game of Thrones once again leads the pack heading into this year's Emmy Awards with 23 nominations.

FX's The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story and Fargo were close behind, with 22 and 18 nominations, respectively, as the Television Academy released the news Thursday morning. HBO's Veep, which ousted ABC's Modern Family as best comedy last year, also stayed strong with 17 total nominations.

With that in mind, HBO pulled in a total of 94 nominations, the highest of any network, followed by FX at 56. Netflix also scored 54 and Amazon 16, for solid showings in the race.

Broadcast networks ABC, Fox, CBS and NBC saw either the same or fewer nominations than last year-and were shut out of the Best Drama category.

That went to HBO's Game of Thrones, USA's Mr. Robot, AMC's Better Call Saul, Netflix's House of Cards, FX's and Showtime's Homeland.

Mentions of long-ignored The Americans came as a pleasant surprise to many long-suffering TV critics, along with first-time nominations of the show's stars Kerri Russell and Matthew Rhys for Outstanding Lead Performer for a Drama Series. Mr. Robot's was also a newbie on that list.

The Outstanding Lead Performer for a Comedy Series category was also full of first-time nominations, including Master of None's Aziz Ansari, Silicon Valley's Thomas Middleditch, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt's Ellie Kemper and black-ish's Tracee Ellis.

Surprising snubs included the omission of Lady Gaga for her performance in American Horror Story: Hotel -which won a Golden Globe-and no mention of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert for Best Variety Talk Series.

Orange is the New Black was also more or less shut out this year, along with CBS series The Good Wife, which ended its run this spring. The TV Academy also ignored Starz' Outlander and Globe Globe winner Rachel Bloom of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

While Empire's Taraji P. Henson got a nomination, the Fox series itself was left out of the Best Drama category. And despite the Peabody Award win for Lifetime's UnReal, the show was passed over by the Television Academy-although Constance Zimmer did get a Supporting Actress nomination.

The 68th Primetime Emmy Awards will be broadcast on September 18 on ABC.

View the full list of 2016 Emmy Award nominations