If you search for “2026 Emmy winners” before the main telecast, the hardest part is separating results that are already official from predictions that are still being presented as if they were outcomes. As of September 12, 2026, that distinction matters: the Creative Arts Emmy ceremonies have already taken place, but the main 78th Emmy Awards telecast has not.
The Television Academy says the main ceremony will air live Monday, September 14, 2026, at 8:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 p.m. PT on NBC and Peacock from the Peacock Theater at L.A. LIVE. The Creative Arts ceremonies were held September 5 and 6, with an edited broadcast scheduled for September 12 on FXX. This article therefore separates confirmed 2026 Emmy winners from our predictions for categories that remain undecided. It also treats the red carpet correctly: there is no official Television Academy “best dressed” Emmy, so red-carpet picks below are a viewing forecast, not award results.
For the official, continuously updated record, use the Television Academy nominees and winners database.
The first two nights of the 78th Emmys produced a substantial list of confirmed winners in craft, reality, nonfiction, guest-performance and selected limited-series categories. These results matter on their own, and they also give us useful evidence for forecasting the September 14 telecast.
On September 5, the Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny led the first night with seven Emmys. The Traitors won six, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert won five, and The Muppet Show won four. Mariska Hargitay also won two Emmys for My Mom Jayne: A Film by Mariska Hargitay. The official recap is available from the Television Academy’s Night One recap.
On September 6, Widow’s Bay led Night Two with eight Emmys, while DTF St. Louis won six. The Pitt and Pluribus each collected four, while Beef, Margo’s Got Money Troubles and Palm Royale each won three. Confirmed acting winners included Linda Cardellini and David Harbour for supporting performances in DTF St. Louis, Shailene Woodley for a guest role in Paradise, Ernest Harden Jr. for a guest role in The Pitt, Betty Gilpin for a guest role in Widow’s Bay, and the late Rob Reiner for a guest role in The Bear. See the official Night Two recap.
The 78th Emmy Awards will air live coast-to-coast on NBC and stream on Peacock on Monday, September 14, at 8:00 p.m. ET / 5:00 p.m. PT. Mariska Hargitay is the host. The Television Academy has also announced presenters including Zendaya, Florence Pugh, Sally Field, Amy Poehler, Jon Hamm, Linda Cardellini, David Harbour, Keke Palmer, Dan Levy, Sarah Michelle Gellar and others.
Red-carpet coverage begins earlier. The Academy’s official where-to-watch guide lists multiple pre-shows, including NBC’s red-carpet TikTok stream and E! coverage before the ceremony.
The nomination count is not a guarantee of victory, but it is useful context. The Television Academy announced that The Pitt leads drama with 25 nominations, while the final season of Hacks set a comedy record with 24 nominations. Widow’s Bay entered the race with 19 nominations and then converted eight of them into Creative Arts wins, making it the most important late-breaking signal in the comedy race.
The official nomination announcement can be checked at the Television Academy’s July 8 nominations release.
These are predictions, not leaked results or official winners. The picks weigh nomination strength, already-completed Creative Arts voting outcomes and the breadth of support a show has demonstrated across different Television Academy peer groups.
| Category | Prediction | Why it is the pick |
|---|---|---|
| Outstanding Drama Series | The Pitt | It leads all drama contenders with 25 nominations and added four Creative Arts wins, showing support beyond the headline acting categories. |
| Lead Actor in a Drama Series | Noah Wyle — The Pitt | Wyle is nominated for performance, directing and producing this year, while his series enters the main ceremony as the nomination leader in drama. |
| Lead Actress in a Drama Series | Rhea Seehorn — Pluribus | Pluribus already won four Creative Arts Emmys. Seehorn faces a strong field including Carrie Coon, Chase Infiniti, Keri Russell and Zendaya, but the show’s cross-branch support makes her our narrow pick. |
| Outstanding Comedy Series | Widow’s Bay | Hacks has the record-setting 24 nominations, but Widow’s Bay turned its 19 nominations into eight Creative Arts wins. That makes this our most aggressive prediction. |
| Lead Actor in a Comedy Series | Matthew Rhys — Widow’s Bay | The category also includes Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Steve Carell, Jason Segel and Martin Short. Rhys benefits from the strongest Creative Arts momentum of any comedy contender. |
| Lead Actress in a Comedy Series | Jean Smart — Hacks | Smart remains the safest acting pick for the record-nominated final season of Hacks. The official field also includes Quinta Brunson, Ayo Edebiri, Elle Fanning and Lisa Kudrow. |
| Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series | DTF St. Louis | Its six Creative Arts wins include both limited-series supporting acting awards and picture editing, a combination that suggests broad support. |
| Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie | Jason Bateman — DTF St. Louis | Bateman received multiple nominations this season, while DTF St. Louis has already emerged as the dominant limited-series performer at the Creative Arts ceremonies. |
| Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie | Carey Mulligan — Beef | Beef won three Creative Arts Emmys and Mulligan is nominated in a field that also includes Claire Danes, Sally Field, Sarah Pidgeon and Sarah Snook. |
| Outstanding Reality Competition Program | The Traitors | It won six Emmys on Night One, including another host win for Alan Cumming, and it is the defending winner in the reality competition category. |
| Outstanding Variety Series | The Late Show with Stephen Colbert | The final-season narrative is backed by five Creative Arts wins. Its competition includes The Daily Show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Saturday Night Live. |
Because the nomination leader and the Creative Arts leader are different shows. Hacks arrived with 24 nominations, the most ever for a comedy in one year. It also has an established Emmy history and Jean Smart remains a formidable lead-actress contender. If voters treat the final season as a farewell celebration, Hacks could easily take the top comedy prize.
But Widow’s Bay did something more immediate: it won eight Emmys on September 6, including casting, production design, sound editing, sound mixing, cinematography, music supervision and music composition, plus Betty Gilpin’s guest-performance win. Success across so many branches is evidence of enthusiasm distributed throughout the Academy. That does not make a comedy-series victory certain, but it is enough to move the show from “interesting nominee” to our predicted winner.
It is the clearest statistical favorite, but not a lock. The Pitt leads the drama field with 25 nominations and won four Creative Arts Emmys. Pluribus also won four, making it a credible challenger, especially with Rhea Seehorn in the lead-actress race. The drama-series nominee list also includes The Diplomat, Slow Horses, The Gilded Age, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Paradise and Your Friends & Neighbors.
For readers checking results after the ceremony, the easiest self-check is simple: return to the Academy’s official nominees and winners page. Predictions should be treated as analysis until that database marks the category winner.
There is no official Television Academy award for “red carpet winner,” so any best-dressed list published before or after the show is editorial judgment. A more useful pre-show forecast is to identify the arrivals most likely to draw attention because the people involved are nominees, presenters, the host or part of a special broadcast moment.
Zendaya is both a confirmed presenter and a nominee for Lead Actress in a Drama Series. That places her at the intersection of fashion coverage and one of the night’s major competitive categories.
Hargitay is hosting the telecast and arrives after already winning two Emmys during Night One for My Mom Jayne. Her red-carpet appearance therefore carries more context than a standard host arrival: she enters the main night as both master of ceremonies and a 2026 winner.
The Academy says the telecast will include a 30th-anniversary celebration of Buffy the Vampire Slayer with Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz, plus a 50th-anniversary Charlie’s Angels moment with Kate Jackson, Cheryl Ladd and Jaclyn Smith. Those appearances are likely to become major pre-show and social-media moments regardless of fashion rankings.
Chase Infiniti, Sarah Pidgeon, Elle Fanning and other first-time or newly prominent nominees can generate as much red-carpet conversation as established winners. The Academy reported 28 first-time performer nominees across the 2026 acting categories, giving this year’s carpet an unusually large group of new faces entering Emmy night with meaningful competitive stakes.
| Status on September 12, 2026 | Examples |
|---|---|
| Confirmed | Creative Arts results from September 5–6, including wins for The Traitors, Widow’s Bay, DTF St. Louis, The Pitt, Pluribus, Beef and others. |
| Not yet decided publicly | Main telecast categories such as Drama Series, Comedy Series, most lead acting awards, Limited or Anthology Series, Reality Competition and Variety Series. |
| Editorial prediction only | Every pick in the prediction table above and all red-carpet forecasts. |
The most useful way to read the 2026 Emmy race two days before the main telecast is not to ask for a “full winners list” that does not yet exist. Start with the winners already certified by the Television Academy, then use Creative Arts results as evidence for what may happen next.
Our strongest calls are The Pitt for Drama Series, Noah Wyle for drama actor, Jean Smart for comedy actress, DTF St. Louis for limited series and The Traitors for reality competition. The riskiest — and most interesting — prediction is Widow’s Bay upsetting the record-nominated final season of Hacks for Outstanding Comedy Series.
After the September 14 ceremony begins, predictions stop being useful the moment a category is announced. The final self-check is the official record: compare each pick against the Television Academy database rather than a circulating graphic, social post or prematurely published “winner” article. That keeps the distinction between confirmed awards and pre-show forecasting clear from the red carpet through the final Emmy of the night.
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