Emmys 2026: Cinematography, Editing, Sound and Documentary Winners

Summary

• The 78th Emmys announced winners across cinematography, editing, sound and documentary/nonfiction
• Spider-Noir, Widow’s Bay and DTF St.
• Louis won the scripted cinematography categories
• Pluribus, DTF St.
• Louis, Hacks and Leanne were among the Picture Editing winners
• Spider-Noir, Widow’s Bay, Beef and Ocean With David Attenborough won Sound Editing awards
• Pluribus, Widow’s Bay and Beef won scripted Sound Mixing categories
• My Mom Jayne won Documentary or Nonfiction Special and Mr. Scorsese won Documentary or Nonfiction Series
• The main 78th Emmy Awards ceremony will take place on September 14, 2026

The 78th Emmys have named the winners across cinematography, editing, sound and documentary/nonfiction, revealing which productions stood out throughout the television production chain.

The first two nights of the 78th Emmys took place on September 5 and 6, 2026, at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles and covered a large part of the Creative Arts categories, from cinematography and picture editing to sound editing, sound mixing and nonfiction. The initial cinematography winners included Spider-Noir, Widow’s Bay, DTF St. Louis, Ocean With David Attenborough and The Traitors, but the overall technical awards picture extends much further.

The results are particularly relevant to cinematographers, editors and sound professionals because several productions did not win in only one field. Widow’s Bay, Spider-Noir, Pluribus, DTF St. Louis, Beef and Ocean With David Attenborough appear repeatedly across the craft categories, illustrating how closely cinematography, pacing, sound design and overall storytelling are now connected.

The five cinematography winners

Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (One Hour) went to Darran Tiernan ISC for the Spider-Noir episode “Step Into My Office.”

Christian Sprenger ASC won Outstanding Cinematography for a Series (Half-Hour) for the Widow’s Bay episode “Our History,” while James Whitaker ASC received Outstanding Cinematography for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for DTF St. Louis’s “Cornhole.”

In nonfiction, Doug Anderson and Toby Strong were honored for Ocean With David Attenborough. Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Program went to The Traitors team, led by Directors of Photography Siggi Rosen-Rawlings and Matt Wright alongside a large camera crew.

All Picture Editing winners

The Picture Editing awards were split across scripted, nonfiction, reality and variety programming.

• Outstanding Picture Editing for a Drama Series: Pluribus, “We Is Us” — Skip Macdonald ACE.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie: DTF St. Louis, “No One’s Normal. It Just Looks That Way From Across The Street” — Kevin D. Ross ACE and Max Koepke.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for a Single-Camera Comedy Series: Hacks, “Hacks (Finale)” — Jon Philpot.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for a Multi-Camera Comedy Series: Leanne, “Having Big Feelings” — Russell Griffin ACE.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for a Nonfiction Program: Sean Combs: The Reckoning, “Blink Again” — Charles Divak ACE, Evan Wise ACE, Jack Gravina, Benji Kast ACE, Adam Goldstein, Jonathan Miller and Jeremy Siefer.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for an Unstructured Reality Program: Love On The Spectrum, “Episode 4” — Marcus Kjellberg, Leanne Cole, Kim Lloyd and John Rosser.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for a Structured Reality or Competition Program: The Traitors, “The Death Conga” — David Moon, Patrick Owen, Matt Pratt and James Seddon-Brown.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming: The Muppet Show — Kelly Lyon ACE.
• Outstanding Picture Editing for Variety Programming (Segment): The Late Show With Stephen Colbert — Andrew Matheson and Amanda Sprecher.

Pluribus stands out because Skip Macdonald’s editing win was accompanied by a Sound Mixing Emmy, while DTF St. Louis combined wins in cinematography and editing. The connection matters: cinematography determines what material exists, but editing ultimately determines the timing, information and intensity with which the audience experiences it.

Sound Editing: Spider-Noir, Widow’s Bay, Beef and Ocean

Sound Editing produced four notable winners across scripted and nonfiction programming.

Spider-Noir won the one-hour comedy/drama category for “The Man In The Mask.” The winning team included Ethan Beigel MPSE, Andy Sisul, Will Digby MPSE, Ryan Collins, Arielle McGrail, Caitlin Lutenske, DeVaughn Watts MPSE, Sanaa Kelley MPSE and Matt Salib.

In the half-hour comedy/drama and animation category, the Emmy went to Widow’s Bay for “What To Expect On Your Trip,” with Matt Yocum MPSE, Sang Kim, Goeun Everett, Ryan Sullivan, Nick Seaman, Nate Underkuffler, Leslie Bloome and Shaun Brennan.

For limited or anthology productions, Beef won with “It Will Stay This Way And You Will Obey.” The team consisted of Christopher Gomez MPSE, Danika Wikke, Jerry Lafuente, Yurii Kerelius, Luke Dennis and Danylo Gomlez.

Outstanding Sound Editing for a Nonfiction or Reality Program went to Ocean With David Attenborough, giving it a second technical Emmy alongside cinematography, with George Fry, Roy Noy, Jonathon Cawte and Chris Domaille receiving the award.

Sound Mixing: From Pluribus to Bad Bunny

Pluribus won Sound Mixing for a one-hour comedy or drama series with “We Is Us.” The award went to Larry Benjamin CAS, Tim Hoogenakker CAS, Phillip W. Palmer CAS, Dave Porter, Ron Mellegers and Judah Getz CAS.

Widow’s Bay also won the Sound Mixing Emmy for half-hour comedy/drama and animation with Tim Hoogenakker CAS, Larry Benjamin CAS, Kevin Parker, Scott Michael Smith, Judah Getz CAS and Ryan Collison. That means the same production won cinematography, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

In limited or anthology series or movies, Beef added a Sound Mixing win to its Sound Editing victory. Penny Harold CAS, Andy Lange CAS, Devendra Cleary CAS, Sean O’Malley CAS, Jongkun Park, Judah Getz CAS and Illia Popel received the award.

In reality programming, Welcome To Wrexham won with Mark Jensen CAS for “Do A Wrexham,” while Billy Joel: And So It Goes took the nonfiction Sound Mixing award with Bob Chefalas, Mark Mandler, David Mitlyng, Michael Stewart, Bradshaw Leigh, Brian Ruggles and Jay Vicari.

Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Variety Series or Special went to The Apple Music Super Bowl LX Halftime Show Starring Bad Bunny, with Thomas Holmes, Pablo Munguia, Alex Guessard, Dave Natale, Tom Pesa and Christian Schrader.

The major Documentary and Nonfiction Emmys

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special went to HBO Max’s My Mom Jayne: A Film By Mariska Hargitay. Mariska Hargitay produced the film alongside Trish Adlesic, with Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, Lauran Bromley, Anna Klein and Steven Bennett also part of the producing team.

Hargitay also won Outstanding Directing for a Documentary/Nonfiction Program for the same film, completing a double personal victory in the nonfiction categories.

Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series went to Apple TV’s Mr. Scorsese. Its production team includes Damon Cardasis, Cindy Tolan, Rebecca Miller, Rick Yorn, Christopher Donnelly, Julie Yorn, Robert Fernandez, Patrick Walmsley and Ron Burkle.

National Geographic’s Tucci in Italy won Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special, with Stanley Tucci serving as executive producer and host.

PBS’s The Librarians received the juried Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking award, while HBO Max’s Inside The Pitt won Outstanding Short Form Nonfiction or Reality Series.

The productions that won across multiple crafts

Widow’s Bay was the biggest winner on night two with eight Emmys. Beyond cinematography, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, it also won in areas including production design, casting, music supervision and music composition. DTF St. Louis followed with six awards, while Spider-Noir collected five.

DTF St. Louis is particularly interesting from an image-construction perspective because it won both Cinematography and Picture Editing. Pluribus combined Picture Editing and Sound Mixing, while Beef won both major limited/anthology sound categories.

Ocean With David Attenborough is another revealing example: it won both the Nonfiction Cinematography Emmy and Sound Editing for Nonfiction or Reality. These are two very different technical disciplines that, in a natural-history documentary, strongly shape the audience’s sense of presence.

How they compare with the 2024 Emmys

PTTL previously covered the 2024 Emmy cinematography and editing winners, when Shōgun won both one-hour series cinematography and drama-series Picture Editing, Ripley won limited/anthology cinematography, The Bear won cinematography and editing in single-camera comedy, and Baby Reindeer took limited/anthology editing.

The comparison shows that the craft categories do not reward one single visual style. From the stylized Spider-Noir to the reality production of The Traitors and the natural-history filmmaking of Ocean With David Attenborough, cinematography adapts to format and storytelling rather than following one aesthetic formula.

What comes next at the 78th Emmys

The two Creative Arts Emmy nights will be presented in the United States as an edited FXX broadcast on September 12, with Hulu availability beginning the following day.

The main 78th Emmy Awards ceremony is scheduled for September 14, 2026, at the Peacock Theater, hosted by Mariska Hargitay and broadcast live in the United States on NBC and Peacock.

What we think

When cinematography, editing and sound are considered together, this year’s winners provide a much clearer picture of how a successful television production is built. Widow’s Bay, DTF St. Louis, Pluribus, Beef and Ocean With David Attenborough did not stand out because of one isolated technical element, but because different departments worked together. For image creators and post-production professionals, that may be the most useful takeaway from the Creative Arts Emmys: a powerful result rarely belongs exclusively to the camera, the edit or the mix.

Frequently asked questions

Who won the 2026 cinematography Emmys?

The main winners were Darran Tiernan ISC for Spider-Noir, Christian Sprenger ASC for Widow’s Bay, James Whitaker ASC for DTF St. Louis, Doug Anderson and Toby Strong for Ocean With David Attenborough, and The Traitors cinematography team.

Which productions won editing Emmys?

The winners included Pluribus, DTF St. Louis, Hacks, Leanne, Sean Combs: The Reckoning, Love On The Spectrum, The Traitors and The Muppet Show.

Which productions won the main sound awards?

Spider-Noir, Widow’s Bay, Beef and Ocean With David Attenborough won Sound Editing awards, while Pluribus, Widow’s Bay, Beef, Welcome To Wrexham, Billy Joel: And So It Goes and the Bad Bunny halftime show were among the Sound Mixing winners.

Which documentary won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special?

My Mom Jayne: A Film By Mariska Hargitay won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Special, while Mariska Hargitay also won the documentary/nonfiction directing Emmy.

Which series won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series?

Apple TV’s Mr. Scorsese won Outstanding Documentary or Nonfiction Series.