Shogun Wins Best Drama Series at 2024 Emmys

The 2024 Emmy Awards named its Outstanding Drama Series winner during the Sunday, September 15, ceremony.

Shōgun received the accolade at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. The cast and crew accepted the award together. After creator Justin Marks shared a few words, he handed over the mic to star Hiroyuki Sanada who addressed the crowd in Japanese.

“We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all the creww directors and masters who supported our samurai period drama up until now,” Marks translated on stage. “The passions and dreams we have inherited from you have crossed oceans and borders. Arigato gozaimasu.”

Sanada, 63, took home the award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series earlier that evening. His costar, Anna Sawai, won Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Shōgun won a total of 18 Emmys including 14 from the Creative Arts Emmys.

The Crown, Fallout, The Gilded Age, The Morning Show, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Slow Horses and 3 Body Problem were also up for the award.

Prior to the Sunday ceremony, Succession was the reigning winner of the Outstanding Drama Series category. The HBO show earned the honor in January after the 2023 awards show was postponed due to the writers and actors unions’ strikes.

Since Succession aired its fourth and final season in 2023, its ineligibility from the Outstanding Drama Series race this year opened up the field for a slew of new contenders. Prime Video’s Fallout, HBO’s The Gilded Age, Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, Prime Video’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith, FX’s Shōgun, Apple TV+’s Slow Horses and Netflix’s 3 Body Problem all received their first-ever nominations in the category. As for The Crown, the Netflix drama previously won the award in 2021 and has earned six total nods in the category through the years.

More specifically, Japanese period saga Shōgun made history with its 25 Emmy nominations, the most of any show this year. Shōgun also became only the second majority non-English-language show to be nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category after Netflix’s Squid Game received a nod in 2022.

The cast of Shōgun also racked up nominations: Sanada for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, Sawai for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and Tadanobu Asano and Takehiro Hira for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. Sanada and Sawai are the first-ever Japanese nominees in their respective categories. (The only other Japanese performer to earn a nod for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama series was Masi Oka for Heroes in 2007.)

Outside of Shōgun’s 25 nominations, the other shows up for Outstanding Drama Series were recognized in various other categories, with 18 total nods for The Crown, 16 for Fallout, The Morning Show and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, nine for Slow Horses and six for The Gilded Age and 3 Body Problem.