Watchmen leads all Emmy noms with 26, as The Mandalorian & more rack up major nods

This morning, Leslie Jones (Ghostbusters) announced the nominees for the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards — all done virtually, of course, with Laverne Cox (Orange Is the New Black), Josh Gad (seemingly everything), and Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) also appearing via video chat to help present at the announcement ceremony.

It's been a year since Game of Thrones busted records with its final season's accolades, and losing HBO's fantasy juggernaut opened up the field considerably — that's a full 32 nominations available for other genre shows! Shows like Watchmen, which dominated the small screen with a staggering 26 nominations, and The Mandalorian.

While there were lower totals for genre shows this time around (The Mandalorian had 15, Westworld had 11, and The Handmaid's Tale saw 10, while What We Do in the Shadows and Stranger Things saw 8 each), HBO still ran the proceedings, with its Watchmen limited series racking up plenty of top nominations.

These included Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie (Jeremy Irons), Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie (Regina King), Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie (Jean Smart), and Outstanding Limited Series or Movie. Oh, and let's not forget its staggering three nominations for Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or Movie: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jovan Adepo, and Louis Gossett Jr. The more technical nominations for the critically beloved series included Outstanding Production Design, Casting, Cinematography, Costumes, Directing, Editing, Title Design, Music, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, VFX, and Writing. Basically, if something was done to make Watchmen happen on-screen, it earned an Emmy nomination for it.

Disney+'s Star Wars series The Mandalorian's nominations were almost as diverse, though its major boons came from Outstanding Drama Series, Guest Actor in a Drama Series for Giancarlo Esposito, and Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for Taika Waititi's bounty-hunting droid IG-11. But it also earned plenty in the aforementioned categories, with a special note that the episode "The Child," aka the one focused on Baby Yoda, got nominated for VFX. Effectively, Baby Yoda is an Emmy nominee.

HBO's Westworld and Hulu's The Handmaid's Tale also showed up in a major way, respectively earning nominations for Thandie Newton and Samira Wiley (Supporting Actress in a Drama Series), and Jeffrey Wright and Bradley Whitford (Supporting Actor in a Drama Series). Handmaid's also earned one for Guest Actress in a Drama series thanks to Alexis Bledel, an overall Outstanding Drama Series nomination, and those for Casting, Production Design, VFX, Costumes, and Hair; Westworld scored on Production Design, Cinematography, Makeup, VFX, and Costumes.

NBC's The Good Place rode its final season into the sunset, finding six nominations, including Lead Actor (Ted Danson), Supporting Actress (D'Arcy Carden), Supporting Actor (William Jackson Harper), Guest Actress in a Comedy Series (Maya Rudolph), and Outstanding Comedy Series.

Fans can watch the full announcements here:

Other heavy hitters included FX's What We Do in the Shadows, also nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series (as well as Writing and Casting), and Netflix's Stranger Things, nominated for Outstanding Dramatic Series (as well as VFX and Stunts). Guest Actor in a Drama Series saw showings from Black Mirror's Andrew Scott and The Outsider's Jason Bateman, while Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh were both nominated as Lead Actresses in a Drama Series for their work on assassin/romance/snarkfest Killing Eve .

On the animated side of things, BoJack Horseman, Rick and Morty, and The Simpsons earned Outstanding Animation nominations, while Steven Universe Future, Robot Chicken, and Forky Asks a Question got Short Form honors. Other notable nominees included Star Wars Resistance, Star Trek: Picard, Space Force, Mr. Robot, Lost in Space, The Little Mermaid Live!, LEGO Masters, Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Homecoming, Carnival Row, Apollo 11, American Horror Story: 1984, and Vikings.

The winners will be announced Sept. 20 at the Jimmy Kimmel-hosted 72nd Primetime Emmy Award ceremony on ABC.

A full list of nominees can be found here.