Sally Field could do something truly remarkable this year: win an Emmy Award for starring in a TV movie.
The feat hasn’t been accomplished in 13 years, when Michael Douglas triumphed for playing legendary Las Vegas entertainer Liberace in 2013’s Behind the Candelabra. The year before, Julianne Moore prevailed for playing Gov. Sarah Palin in Game Change. (We’re not counting Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman’s dual wins for Sherlock: His Last Vow in 2014, as that was the show’s Season 3 finale and was simply classified as a TV movie for awards purposes.)
In the decade-plus since Douglas and Moore, made-for-television movies have essentially been seen as the pariah of the Emmys, with a precious few being nominated for acting.
In fact, Field’s bid for playing Tova Sullivan in Netflix‘s Remarkably Bright Creatures is the first acting nomination for an original TV film since 2023, when Daniel Radcliffe was recognized for playing the titular role in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. That project won Best TV Movie, but Radcliffe failed to replicate Moore’s acting victory, losing to Steven Yeun for Beef, which also won Best Limited Series.
Prior to Radcliffe, only a handful of actors from TV movies in recent years had been nominated. Hugh Jackman earned a nod as an embezzling school district superintendent in 2020’s Bad Education; Tituss Burgess nabbed a supporting citation in 2020 for his canceled show’s interactive follow-up film, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend; and seven performers were recognized in 2021 for the Broadway-to-television Hamilton special: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Leslie Odom Jr., Daveed Diggs, Jonathan Groff, Anthony Ramos, Renée Elise Goldsberry, and Phillipa Soo.
The lack of overall Emmy appreciation for telefilms prompted the Television Academy to rename the category this year from Best Television Movie to Best Movie, in the hopes of attracting a stronger slate of contenders. It’s unclear whether the rebrand was successful.
Notably, when Douglas and Moore became the most recent performers to win for a TV film, their programs were nominated for 15 and 12 Emmys, respectively, demonstrating widespread love within the Academy. Behind the Candelabra ended up winning 11 trophies, while Game Change made off with five. But Remarkably Bright Creatures only has three nominations: Best Movie, Best Limited/Movie Actress for Field, and Best Limited/Movie Costumes.
Around that same time period, Ryan Murphy was single-handedly reinventing the dying limited/anthology series category. In 2013, the Emmys even voted to merge the lead and supporting longform acting categories, however, they reversed that decision before it took effect.
Thanks to Murphy’s American Horror Story, networks realized there was potential in shows that told a beginning, middle, and end over multiple episodes. Subsequent programs like Fargo, American Crime, and Big Little Lies soon dominated the Emmys, while television films were pushed to the background — by the studios and by the TV Academy.
Joining Remarkably Bright Creatures in the current Best Movie Emmy lineup are Prime Video’s Heads of State, HBO’s Miss You, Love You, Netflix’s People We Meet on Vacation, and Prime Video’s Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War, the latter of which also secured a Best Limited/Movie Sound Editing bid.
Based on the 2022 novel of the same name, Remarkably Bright Creatures stars Field as a widow who forms an unlikely bond with Marcellus (voiced by Alfred Molina), a giant Pacific octopus, while pulling night-shift duty at a local aquarium alongside Lewis Pullman’s down-on-his-luck custodian.
Primetime Emmy Awards 2026
Per the Gold Derby predictions, Field has a 5% chance of winning her lead actress race, with the category front-runner being Carey Mulligan (Beef) at 65%. The other nominees are Sarah Snook (All Her Fault) at 22%, Sarah Pidgeon (Love Story) at 7%, and Claire Danes (The Beast in Me) at 1%.
But our odds may be deceiving.
Field is a two-time Oscar winner for Norma Rae (1979) and Places in the Heart (1984), and a three-time Emmy champion for Sybil (1977), ER (2001), and Brothers & Sisters (2007). In other words, awards voters like her, clearly like her, and they don’t get a chance to vote for a legend like Field very often.
The actress didn’t just star in Remarkably Bright Creatures; she also helped develop it from Shelby Van Pelt’s novel. Extra credit points?
“This came to me in galleys before it was published. I immediately said it was something that I wanted to do,” Field told Gold Derby. “From page one, you’re struck by the fact that the narrator is a giant Pacific octopus and that Tova, the character I play, is very much dependent upon him. He is the only one she talks to. That struck me, her loneliness, her isolation, her hanging on to her grief.”
Creative Arts Emmy Awards 2026
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Remarkably Bright Creatures
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People We Meet on Vacation
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As for the Best Movie race, Remarkably Bright Creatures has an octopus-sized lead with 97% support to win the Emmy Award. It would be quite a surprise if the Olivia Newman-directed feel-good project doesn’t prevail. The other nominees are all fighting for scraps with the remaining 3%.
Find out who wins this year when the 2026 Emmys take place Sept. 5–6 (Creative Arts) and Sept. 14 (Primetime).
