HBO Leaves 2015 Emmy Awards with 13 Major Winners from Game of Thrones, Veep, Olive Kitteridge

If anyone ever doubted whether or not HBO is producing quality television, those doubts could be relieved by simply looking at the list of 2015 Emmy Winners. Between Game of Thrones, Veep and Olive Kitteridge, the Home Box Office left the 2015 Primetime Emmy Awards with 13 winners of the 24 major awards.

For the first time ever, as CNN reported, Game of Thrones won the 2015 Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series. The only HBO show nominated for this Emmy, it beat out two shows produced by Netflix (House of Cards and Orange is the New Black), two by AMC (Better Call Saul and Mad Men), as well as PBS’s (Downton Abbey) and Showtime’s (Homeland) non-winning nominations.

Game of Thrones — tied with HBO’s Veep for 2nd most awards among all winners — also took home major Emmy awards that included Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series (Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister), Outstanding Director for a Drama Series (David Nutter on the episode “Mother’s Mercy”), and Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series (“Mother’s Mercy” again, written by David Benioff and D. B. Weiss).

Also claiming four winners for HBO, Veep took care of their network in the comedy categories. For the first time, as noted by Entertainment Weekly, Veep beat out Modern Family for the 2015 Outstanding Comedy Series Emmy. It also claimed winners for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series (Julia Louis-Dreyfus as President Selina Meyer), Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series (Tony Hale as Gary Walsh), and Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series (Simon Blackwwell, Armando Iannucci, and Tony Roche for “Election Night”).

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Prior to 2015, Louis-Dreyfus was a cast member on Seinfeld, which was the Emmy Winner for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1993. On the NBC sitcom, she was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series six times, winning once. As part of Veep, Julia has won the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress every year since 2012. Although it was nominated the prior three years, 2015 was the first year that Veep actually won the Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. Tony Hale was nominated last year, and won in 2013.

But both Veep and Game of Thrones fell short of HBO’s (and the Emmy Awards’) biggest winner of the night, Olive Kitteridge. Adapted by HBO to a mini-series from the novel by Elizabeth Strout, it won six of the major awards designated for a limited series or movie at the 2015 Emmy Awards. Those awards include Outstanding Limited Series, Lead Actor (Richard Jenkins), Lead Actress (Frances McDormand), Supporting Actor (Bill Murray), Outstanding Directing (Lisa Cholodenko) and Outstanding Writing (Jane Anderson).

Zoe Kazan was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie, the only major award that Olive didn’t win.

A complete list of the winners and nominees can be found here. Other shows that were declared winners for the major 2015 Emmy Awards include Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (3) and Inside Amy Schumer(1), Amazon’s Transparent (2), NBC’s The Voice (1), AMC’s Mad Men(1), ABC’s How To Get Away With Murder(1), CBS’s Mom(1) and Netflix’s Orange is the New Black (1).

[Image credit Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]