It may be too late for an Emmy rebrand to save the TV movie category

The made-for-TV movie Emmy category is on life support, and not even a new name may be able to save it.

Last month, the Television Academy announced that the Best Television Movie category would be retitled Best Movie to “more accurately reflect the evolving landscape of cinematic content created for broadcast or streaming.” The rebranding offers a chance for a reset as the streaming era has changed the definition of what precisely defines a “television movie.”

However, studios don’t appear to be taking the bait — at least for now.

After speaking with several major streamers and networks, Gold Derby has only identified a smattering of qualifying telefilms that aired or will air within the eligibility period (June 1, 2025 to May 31, 2026). Some of these projects have already been nominated at precursors like the American Cinema Editors Eddie Awards, the Critics Choice Awards, and the Writers Guild of America Awards.

The 2026 Emmy contenders include:

While the Emmy slate is looking pretty thin right now, it’s worth noting that last year, eventual nominees Mountainhead and Nonnas didn’t debut until May. So there is still plenty of time for more projects to make the cut. We will continue to add Best Movie contenders to our predictions center as they are announced by the studios.

Netflix appears to have the bulk of the eligible TV movies this year, but there’s a reason celebrated streaming features like Guillermo del Toro‘s Frankenstein or Clint Bentley‘s Train Dreams aren’t in the running. In 2021, the TV Academy put an end to the “double-dipping” strategy that some studios were engaging in — that is, competing at both the Oscars and the Emmys for the same project. Since then, if a film is placed on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences viewing platform and secures an Oscar nomination, it is deemed a “theatrical motion picture” and ineligible for the Emmy competition. Frankenstein and Train Dreams are both up for multiple Oscars.

The TV Academy also no longer includes the development history of programming in the eligibility rules, and hasn’t since 2002. Julie Shore, the organization’s vice president of awards, told Gold Derby last year, “[Your project] could have been developed as a film, but maybe you didn’t get distribution and ended up on HBO or Showtime or something like that. To us, it’s all television whether you’re a streamer, cable, or broadcast. It’s TV to us.”

The same hold true with internationally released features, à la last year’s Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy. The sequel made $140 million overseas but never played theatrically in the United States, so it was eligible for the Emmys, where it received a Best Movie nomination. “We don’t count the international screenings,” Shore said. “They even checked with us. ‘It’s OK still because it’s not going anywhere in theaters in the U.S.?’ So, ‘Yeah, you guys can still come in.'”

The days of TV movies influencing the zeitgeist and then going on to dominate the Emmys are in the rearview. The last time any such contender made a splash at the proverbial water cooler was the winning Black Mirror trio of “San Junipero” (2017), “USS Callister” (2018), and “Bandersnatch” (2019). Meanwhile, more recent champions like Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square (2021) and Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers (2022) mostly made awards watchers scratch their heads.

After the “San Junipero” episode of Black Mirror won Best Movie despite having a running time of only 61 minutes, the TV Academy further tightened its rules. “We discussed that and it didn’t seem right,” Shore explained. Thus, a “minimum running time of 75 minutes” was added to the Emmy rule book in 2019.

Four telefilms share the nominations record with 17 apiece: Eleanor and Franklin (1976), Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years (1977), Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007), and Grey Gardens (2009). That’s a far cry from last year, when Rebel Ridge, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Mountainhead, and Nonnas didn’t receive anything outside of Best Movie, and The Gorge only nabbed one extra nom for Best Sound Editing.

Current contender Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man follows a recent trend of Best Movie nominees that served as new chapters of former shows or film franchises. Examples include the aforementioned Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy, Mr. Monk’s Last Case: A Monk Movie, Hocus Pocus 2, Prey, Zoey’s Extraordinary Christmas, Reno 911!: The Hunt for QAnon, Ray Donovan: The Movie, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs the Reverend, and Deadwood: The Movie. Each of those lost, suggesting that Emmy voters prefer wholly original tales in this specific race.

Over the decades, the categories of Best Movie and Best Limited Series (previously known as Best Miniseries) have occasionally been combined. Might that happen again in the future? “We have a rule that we call ‘The Rule of 25,’ so if you drop below 25 [submissions], then you’re being reviewed,” Shore confirmed.

We won’t know exactly how many Best Movie contenders will be submitted this year until the 2026 Emmy ballots are made public in June.