While the Primetime Emmys get all the prestige, it’s the News & Documentary Emmys that interest us more here at Nonfics. There are more awards given to nonfiction films, of course, but also the branch celebrates more progressive forms of journalism and media — i.e. “new approaches” — than the others. Still, the Primetime version of The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ awards were the first to recognize Netflix, which broke ground for online streaming TV series in 2013 with nominations for House of Cards and Arrested Development. Last year, Netflix also got into the Primetime Emmys’ nonfiction categories courtesy of docs The Square and Brave Miss World, and just the other day they added another 34 nominations, including those for docs Virunga and Hot Girls Wanted.
Now, the streaming service is conquering the News & Documentary Emmys, as today’s announcement featured five nominees for Netflix. E-Team is contending for Best Documentary and for Outstanding Long Form Current News Story, while Mission Blue was nominated for Outstanding Long Form Informational Programming and in the Documentary and Long Form categories for Outstanding Editing and Outstanding Cinematography.
Other notable features nominated for News & Documentary Emmys include The Trials of Muhammad Ali, Bully, After Tiller, American Promise, Big Men, Nixon By Nixon: In His Own Words, Terror at the Mall, The Newburgh Sting, Hunted: The War Against Gays in Russia, Medora, Ivory Tower, Private Violence, Muscle Shoals, Banksy Does New York, Supermensch: The Legend of Shep Gordon and Errol Morris’s The Unknown Known.
See where they all landed as well as the rest of the nominees for the 36th annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards here.