Game of Thrones, People v. OJ Simpson reign at Emmy’s 2016

The lords and ladies of Westeros were in the spotlight as Game of Thrones made history once more at this year’s Emmy Awards. The epic fantasy show won 12 Emmy Awards (after being nominated for 24 this year), bringing their total number of wins to 38, surpassing the record previously set by the hit comedy Frasier (37). Game of Thrones took home the prestigious award for Best Drama for the second year in a row. The truly epic penultimate episode of the last season, Battle of the Bastards, was singled out, winning for Best Drama Writing (David Benioff and DB Weiss) and directing (Miguel Sapochnik).

The other big winner of the night was the amazing People v. OJ Simpson, Ryan Murphy’s dramatization of the infamous trial, which took home most of the awards in the miniseries category (winning the most awards of any show, with 13 trophies) Sarah Paulson won Best Actress in a Miniseries and paid a moving tribute to the real Marcia Clark, who she played in the miniseries.

HBO’s political comedy Veep, took home 10 Emmys including those for Best Comedy and Best Actress in a Comedy Series (Julia Louis-Dreyfus, adding a fifth trophy to her collection for her portrayal of Selina Meyer and making Emmy history herself.) HBO took home the most Emmys of any network, with 40 trophies in tow, followed by FX with 28 and Netflix with 17.

Well-deserved recognition finally went to diverse casts, as many of the winners of this year’s Emmys were extremely talented people of color. Notable examples include Courtney B. Vance and Sterling K. Brown winning awards for their roles in People v. OJ Simpson and with Regina King winning Best Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her work on American Crime. Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang took home the award for Best Writing for a Comedy Series for their work on Master of None. Jeffrey Tambor, who won the award for Best Actor in a Comedy for his role in Transparent, called for more opportunities to be given to trans actors, raising even more awareness about this issue.

The top acting awards went to truly well-deserving actors, whose rabid fans have been rooting for them for the start. Best Actor in a Drama went to Rami Malek for his brilliant portrayal of a tortured genius hacker, Elliot Alderson, in Mr. Robot. The trophy for Best Actress (finally) went to Tatiana Maslany, for her unparalleled performance in Orphan Black, playing multiple roles across several seasons of the sci-fi drama.

According to The Guardian, this year’s Emmys was also a good year for British shows as several took home trophies. John Oliver won for Best Variety Talk show, The Night Manager won for Best Directing and the Victorian-era Sherlock Christmas Special, Sherlock: The Abominable Bride took home the award for Outstanding Television Movie.

The 68^th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony was held last September 18 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, honoring the best of television in the past year. The ceremony for the 68^th Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards took place on September 10 and 11 in the same venue.

Click HERE for the full list of winners. And HERE is the list of winners from the Creative Arts Emmy Awards.