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‘The Pitt’ Leads With 25 Emmy Nominations and ‘Hacks’ Is Top Among Comedies with 24

This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)
This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)
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‘The Pitt’ Leads With 25 Emmy Nominations and ‘Hacks’ Is Top Among Comedies with 24

This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)
This image released by Max shows Noah Wyle in a scene from "The Pitt." (Warrick Page/MAX via AP)

“The Pitt” led all nominees with 25 in a dominant sophomore season, while “Hacks” led all comedies with 24 for its final season as the Emmy nominations were announced Wednesday.

HBO Max’s emergency room series “The Pitt” was a rookie upstart last year with big wins including best drama series, best actor for Noah Wyle and best supporting actress for Katherine LaNasa.

Already a beloved veteran show, it owned this year’s acting categories. Wyle was nominated again, as was LaNasa. Taylor Dearden, Fiona Dourif and Sepideh Moafi also got nominations, with “The Pitt” taking four of the seven supporting actress spots.

Three of their castmates were nominated for best supporting actor: Patrick Ball, Shawn Hatosy and Gerran Howell.

Emmy voters love a departing show, and have loved “Hacks” since its first season. Those two colliding phenomena let it rake in nominations for its fifth and final season.

“Hacks” star Jean Smart has won best actress in a comedy for all four previous seasons. It would be stunning if she didn’t claim a fifth in September.

Her sidekick throughout the series Hannah Einbinder, who last year broke through and won supporting actress in a comedy in her fourth nomination, got a fifth nomination Wednesday, as did her castmate, the show’s co-creator Paul W. Downs.

Recent winners Liza Colón-Zayas and Jeff Hiller announced the nominees at the Television Academy in Los Angeles. The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards, airing on NBC, will be held Sept. 14 at the Peacock Theater, the longtime Emmys home that will soon also be home to the Oscars. Mariska Hargitay, who for decades has been one of NBC’s standard-bearers as the star of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” will host.

Two new shows from AppleTV+, the one-woman-against-the-hivemind drama “Pluribus” and the horror comedy “Widow’s Bay,” both scored big in their first seasons.

“Pluribus,” from “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” creator Vince Gilligan, got 18 nods. They included best actress in a drama for its only lead cast member Rhee Seahorn, who is considered the favorite to win the category.

“Widow’s Bay” got 19, second only to “Hacks” among comedies, including a best actor nod for star Matthew Rhys. Two other Apple shows got best comedy nods, “Margo’s Got Money Troubles,” whose stars Elle Fanning and Michelle Pfeiffer also got acting nominations, and “Shrinking.”

The nominations for “Shrinking” included a best supporting actor in a comedy nod for Harrison Ford. The buzz is strong for Ford, with prognosticators picking him to finally win an EGOT-tier award after a storied career. His castmate Jason Segel got a lead actor nomination for the show about therapists crossing boundaries.

Netflix’s “Beef” was tops in the limited or anthology series categories with 16 nominations. “Beef” had a dominant first season in 2023, and the anthology’s all-new grudge holders, Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac and Charles Melton, all got nominations.

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Entertainment

Movie Review: The Live-Action ‘Moana’ Is a Lifeless Carbon Copy of an Animated Classic

Cast member Catherine Laga’aia attends the world premiere for the film Moana at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2026. (Reuters)
Cast member Catherine Laga’aia attends the world premiere for the film Moana at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2026. (Reuters)
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Movie Review: The Live-Action ‘Moana’ Is a Lifeless Carbon Copy of an Animated Classic

Cast member Catherine Laga’aia attends the world premiere for the film Moana at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2026. (Reuters)
Cast member Catherine Laga’aia attends the world premiere for the film Moana at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California, US, July 7, 2026. (Reuters)

Say what you will about them, but the Disney live-action remakes have at least given us a choice. Which would you rather see? A spirited, soaring, animated “Moana,” or a purposeless remake featuring Dwayne Johnson with Fabio hair?

The sea is wide, my friends. Yet Moana, the Polynesian wayfaring princess, has seemingly been stuck swimming laps since she first emerged on our screens 10 years ago. She’s one of Disney’s greatest heroes. The original movie, computer animated by hand-drawn masters Ron Clements and John Musker and buoyed by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s energetic songs, represents the height of Disney animation this century.

But since then, the waters have been rough. “Moana 2,” originally planned as a streaming series, did little to expand the tale. And the new live-action remake does even less. Few of the live-action remakes, regardless of box-office receipts, are covered in glory. But “Moana,” directed by “Hamilton” veteran Thomas Kail, feels especially off course, offering little more than a lamentable swap of cartoon imagination for live-action do-over. The lifeless result veers perilously close to “Saturday Night Live” parody or one of those joke parallel universes in the “Spider-Verse” movies.

The new “Moana” is an often shot-for-shot, note-for-note remake of the original, with small pockets of new material. This is understandable, to a certain degree. The songs are still great. Catherine Lagaʻaia, who plays Moana, sings beautifully. The ocean, in digital splendor, is even bluer.

But all inventiveness has gone out to sea. One of the great things about animation is that it can do anything with a snap of the fingers. You can sense imagination at play. The glories of the original “Moana” lied both in its rich Polynesian connections and its cartoony fun: the goofy shape-shifting of the demigod Maui (Johnson), the toe-tapping moves of the giant crab Tamatoa (Jemaine Clement), the way the ocean heaves Moana back aboard the ship.

Making these things physical realities isn’t just an update in format; it saps them of their animated soul. The result comes across more like play acting than genuine artistic creation. There is, I would wager, no one who ever saw the little coconut pirates in the first “Moana” and said to themselves: “I need a more realistic looking Kakamora.”

The greatest benefit of the live-action update comes in the recreation of Moana’s native Motunui. If the original “Moana” was crafted in homage of Polynesia culture, the presence of real people makes that more tangible. John Tui, a New Zealand actor of Tongan descent, is especially good as Moana’s chief father.

But more often than not, the leap from animation to live action comes at a loss. This is especially true of characters destined to be cartoons, like the rooster Heihei. And it’s painfully the case with Tamatoa, whose “So Shiny” tune was once an undeniable highlight but is now perhaps the most awkwardly staged scene of the movie.

None of this is any fault of Lagaʻaia, whose lively performance is the film’s primary source of forward momentum. Maui — boastful, slyly comic, inevitably heroic — is among Johnson’s most perfectly suited roles. So, it’s a surprise how much his performance here struggles to match the verve of the animated Maui. It could be that Johnson, who’s been drawn increasingly to dramatic roles recently, has aged out a character who was a fantasy to begin with, and a wig isn’t enough to cover the discrepancy.

With Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” soon to sail into theaters, it’s an unusually good time for ocean-faring myths about gods and homecomings. No one knows how far this franchise will go — a third animated film is in development. But Moana is in increasingly desperate need of some new waters to explore.

Entertainment

‘Being Heumann,’ About a Disability Rights Activist, to Open Toronto Film Festival

Judith Heumann, special advisor for International Disability Rights at the US Department of State, speaks at the opening session of the China-US Coordination Meeting on Disability in Beijing, April 12, 2016. (AP)
Judith Heumann, special advisor for International Disability Rights at the US Department of State, speaks at the opening session of the China-US Coordination Meeting on Disability in Beijing, April 12, 2016. (AP)
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‘Being Heumann,’ About a Disability Rights Activist, to Open Toronto Film Festival

Judith Heumann, special advisor for International Disability Rights at the US Department of State, speaks at the opening session of the China-US Coordination Meeting on Disability in Beijing, April 12, 2016. (AP)
Judith Heumann, special advisor for International Disability Rights at the US Department of State, speaks at the opening session of the China-US Coordination Meeting on Disability in Beijing, April 12, 2016. (AP)

“Being Heumann,” director Siân Heder's film about the late disability rights activist Judith Heumann, will open the 51st Toronto International Film Festival.

Festival organizers announced Tuesday that “Being Heumann,” starring Ruth Madeley as Heumann, will make its world premiere on the opening night of the Canadian festival Sept. 10. The festival runs through Sept. 20.

Heumann, who died in 2023, has been called the “mother of the disability rights movement” for her longtime advocacy and for lobbying for what eventually led to the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. Heumann, who lost the ability to walk at age 2, was also a central figure in the Oscar-nominated 2020 film “Crip Camp.”

“Being Heumann” is Heder's follow-up to the 2021 film “CODA,” which won best picture at the Academy Awards. The win marked a milestone for the deaf community and signaled the first time a streamer, Apple, won Hollywood's top award. Apple is also releasing “Being Heumann.”

“We’re thrilled to open this year’s Festival with Siân Heder’s inspiring follow-up to her Oscar winning ‘CODA,’” Cameron Bailey, chief executive of TIFF, said in a statement. “'Being Heumann' features an electric performance from Ruth Madeley in the story of Judy Heumann, a world-changing advocate for accessibility.”

The festival, one of the premiere launching pads of fall movies, also announced gala world premieres of Susanna White's legal thriller “Prima Facie,” starring Cynthia Erivo, and of Hur Jin-ho's Korean thriller “The Assassin(s).”

Entertainment

Clooney to Get Lifetime Award at Venice Film Festival

George Clooney appears at the screening of the film "The Boys In The Boat" in London on Dec. 3, 2023. (AP)
George Clooney appears at the screening of the film "The Boys In The Boat" in London on Dec. 3, 2023. (AP)
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Clooney to Get Lifetime Award at Venice Film Festival

George Clooney appears at the screening of the film "The Boys In The Boat" in London on Dec. 3, 2023. (AP)
George Clooney appears at the screening of the film "The Boys In The Boat" in London on Dec. 3, 2023. (AP)

US actor, director and producer George Clooney will receive a lifetime achievement award at this year's Venice film festival, organizers said on Monday.

Clooney, 65, called the award "a tremendous honor".

"It also probably means I'm old, but I'll take it," he said in a statement released by the annual festival.

This year's edition will run between September 2 and 12 and the jury will be led by US actress Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Clooney, who is also known for his political activism and humanitarian work, is a regular at the gathering on the Venice Lido.

Clooney's breakthrough role was in the medical drama "ER". He has since starred in dozens of films, including "Syriana" for which he won an Oscar for best supporting actor.

Venice festival director Alberto Barbera called Clooney "a complete and charismatic artist, impassioned and original".