How Did the Emmys’ Documentary Category Get So Star-Studded?
Emmy voters are faced with quite the Sophie’s Choice when it comes to this year’s outstanding documentary or nonfiction special nominees.
Look at the embarrassment of riches when it comes to celebrity profiles: You’ve got two legendary Canadian comedians and “SCTV” pals facing off with “John Candy, I Like Me” and “Marty, Life Is Short,” the latter all about Martin Short. There’s Mariska Hargitay’s profile of her mother, “My Mom Jayne.” And then you’ve got two centenarians who are still working: “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” (Brooks actually turned 100 this summer) and “Ocean With David Attenborough,” from the legendary natural history broadcaster, who turned 100 in May.
Of those entries, only “Ocean” centers on a subject that isn’t about a celebrity. Perhaps it’s time to rename this category to “outstanding celebrity documentary” — for, although docs come in all sorts of forms, that is clearly what Primetime Emmy voters are gravitating toward. Since 2022, winners in the field have all been biographies of some sort (“George Carlin’s American Dream,” “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” “Jim Henson: Idea Man” and “Pee-wee as Himself.”
At least it gives a little more framework to an often confusing structure for documentary Emmys. Although the L.A.-based Television Academy and New York-based National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences have done a good job in recent years creating guardrails on who should honor, say, game shows or children’s programming, the land of the doc is still all over the map.
After all, the TV Academy itself has two competing categories, with the aforementioned documentary or nonfiction special and another dubbed “exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking.” That one is normally reserved for more serious docs about heady subjects (this year’s two nominees are “The Librarians” and “The Tale of Silyan”), although in 2025 the bio-doc “I Am: Celine Dion” wound up there too.
The exceptional merit category is “looking for documentaries that have a profound social impact or filmmaking technique, as opposed to a straightforward documentary that might be biographical or entertainment based,” TV Academy VP of awards Julie Shore says.
But isn’t that also what NATAS is looking for in its News & Documentary Emmys competition? That show hands out awards in 24 categories. How do filmmakers figure out where to submit their work?
“It starts at the network level, where they’re strategizing their awards for the year,” says Shore. “Our categories have been more entertainment-focused, where NATAS has more genre-based categories, if it’s political or investigative, historical, more news-focused content.”
But not completely. As crime documentaries become favorites in the pop culture zeitgeist, some of them are being entered into the Primetime Emmys — even though there’s also a “crime and justice” category at the News & Doc Emmys. And in entertainment, News & Doc has an “arts and culture documentary” field, where this year’s nominees included a film about TV host Ed Sullivan and another about the 50th anniversary of “Jaws” — docs that could have easily been entered into the Primetime Emmys.
The two TV academies do coordinate to make sure no one’s trying to enter their docs in multiple Emmy contests. But here’s where things get confusing: If you submit your project into News & Docs, your narrator can still submit into the Primetime Emmys, since NATAS doesn’t have a narrator category. And if you submit your doc to the Primetime Emmys, your researcher can submit to News & Docs, since the TV Academy doesn’t have an award for that line of work.
Hey, to confuse things even more, let’s throw the Oscars into the mix. Because docs frequently get both big and small screen runs, and are often commissioned by TV networks, it’s always a bit vague whether they should be considered TV or film. Filmmakers can’t submit to the Emmys if they’ve already been nominated for an Oscar, but the motion picture academy doesn’t have that same rule — and sometimes double dipping can still occur.
“It’s great that they have choices,” Shore says. Marty, life may be short, but the awards season for documentaries can be quite long.
Look at the embarrassment of riches when it comes to celebrity profiles: You’ve got two legendary Canadian comedians and “SCTV” pals facing off with “John Candy, I Like Me” and “Marty, Life Is Short,” the latter all about Martin Short. There’s Mariska Hargitay’s profile of her mother, “My Mom Jayne.” And then you’ve got two centenarians who are still working: “Mel Brooks: The 99 Year Old Man!” (Brooks actually turned 100 this summer) and “Ocean With David Attenborough,” from the legendary natural history broadcaster, who turned 100 in May.
Of those entries, only “Ocean” centers on a subject that isn’t about a celebrity. Perhaps it’s time to rename this category to “outstanding celebrity documentary” — for, although docs come in all sorts of forms, that is clearly what Primetime Emmy voters are gravitating toward. Since 2022, winners in the field have all been biographies of some sort (“George Carlin’s American Dream,” “Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie,” “Jim Henson: Idea Man” and “Pee-wee as Himself.”
At least it gives a little more framework to an often confusing structure for documentary Emmys. Although the L.A.-based Television Academy and New York-based National Academy of TV Arts & Sciences have done a good job in recent years creating guardrails on who should honor, say, game shows or children’s programming, the land of the doc is still all over the map.
After all, the TV Academy itself has two competing categories, with the aforementioned documentary or nonfiction special and another dubbed “exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking.” That one is normally reserved for more serious docs about heady subjects (this year’s two nominees are “The Librarians” and “The Tale of Silyan”), although in 2025 the bio-doc “I Am: Celine Dion” wound up there too.
The exceptional merit category is “looking for documentaries that have a profound social impact or filmmaking technique, as opposed to a straightforward documentary that might be biographical or entertainment based,” TV Academy VP of awards Julie Shore says.
But isn’t that also what NATAS is looking for in its News & Documentary Emmys competition? That show hands out awards in 24 categories. How do filmmakers figure out where to submit their work?
“It starts at the network level, where they’re strategizing their awards for the year,” says Shore. “Our categories have been more entertainment-focused, where NATAS has more genre-based categories, if it’s political or investigative, historical, more news-focused content.”
But not completely. As crime documentaries become favorites in the pop culture zeitgeist, some of them are being entered into the Primetime Emmys — even though there’s also a “crime and justice” category at the News & Doc Emmys. And in entertainment, News & Doc has an “arts and culture documentary” field, where this year’s nominees included a film about TV host Ed Sullivan and another about the 50th anniversary of “Jaws” — docs that could have easily been entered into the Primetime Emmys.
The two TV academies do coordinate to make sure no one’s trying to enter their docs in multiple Emmy contests. But here’s where things get confusing: If you submit your project into News & Docs, your narrator can still submit into the Primetime Emmys, since NATAS doesn’t have a narrator category. And if you submit your doc to the Primetime Emmys, your researcher can submit to News & Docs, since the TV Academy doesn’t have an award for that line of work.
Hey, to confuse things even more, let’s throw the Oscars into the mix. Because docs frequently get both big and small screen runs, and are often commissioned by TV networks, it’s always a bit vague whether they should be considered TV or film. Filmmakers can’t submit to the Emmys if they’ve already been nominated for an Oscar, but the motion picture academy doesn’t have that same rule — and sometimes double dipping can still occur.
“It’s great that they have choices,” Shore says. Marty, life may be short, but the awards season for documentaries can be quite long.