Until last month, the last time a TV movie was nominated for a writing Emmy was in 2015, when Dee Rees’s acclaimed HBO biopic, Bessie, and the wrap-up special Hello Ladies: The Movie both found their way into a field ultimately won out by the miniseries Olive Kitteridge. In the time since, the form seemed to near obsolescence. For years, not a single TV movie actor was recognized by the Television Academy; for several years, the outstanding TV movie category hasn’t been presented on the main Emmys telecast, instead booted to the craft-centric Creative Arts ceremony that occurs the weekend prior. Depending on your perspective, the category of TV movies either exploded, blurred, or disappeared with the advent of streaming and the boom of prestige limited series. And the Emmys, at least, appeared to lose interest.

A guide to Hollywood’s biggest races

Take one look at this year’s Emmy nods list, though, and it’s obvious that something changed. Suddenly, fully half of the nominees for writing—in a field that groups limited series and anthology series with TV movies—are, indeed, TV movies. We finally have an acting nominee from a TV movie again, in Weird’s Daniel Radcliffe. The overall slate is robust enough that we can identify genuine snubs, in the critically adored Reality from HBO, starring Sydney Sweeney. So is the TV movie back? Does it matter?

I’d argue that it does. For many studios and platforms that now compete for both Oscars and Emmys, the ambiguity around eligibility has made the latter ceremony often feel like a backup plan. HBO Max could say Steven Soderbergh’s Let Them All Talk was Oscar-eligible, while the teen comedy Unpregnant was Emmy-eligible, even though they were released in identical fashion. (Neither was nominated for either, anyway.) The TV Academy has hardly helped matters when voting on particular rule changes, like the one for documentaries that were Oscar-eligible but not Oscar-nominated, rendering them retroactively eligible for Emmy consideration. That went into effect this year for the likes of (Emmy-nominated!) Moonage Daydream and Good Night Oppy. Surely an entire medium’s biggest award could stand to show a little more self-respect.

In today’s contracting and confusing theatrical landscape, the TV—okay, mostly streaming—movie still has its value. Hulu has taken advantage of first-run rights on a range of Searchlight titles, for instance, including the solid Boston Strangler, starring Keira Knightley and Carrie Coon, and the delightful Rye Lane, from debut filmmaker Raine Allen-Miller. Neither of those films were nominated for the Emmy, but they were right to compete here, as films discovered on streaming in a way Searchlight’s other 2023 titles—like incoming Oscar players Poor Things and Next Goal Wins—will not be.

You could argue that Hulu, particularly, has started figuring this new world out. Arguably the biggest TV movie breakthrough of 2023 goes to Prey, the new Predator movie helmed by Dan Trachtenberg which was a reported hit on the streamer and a certain word-of-mouth success across social media. This is how a streaming-film breakout should play out. It’s now up for six Emmys, including for outstanding TV movie, writing, and directing—a haul that, for this particular subgenre, is pretty unheard of nowadays. (We’re a far cry from the dominant showings of starry cable pics like Game Change and Temple Grandin.) Searchlight’s Fire Island is also included in that writing field (as well as best TV movie), and the Joel Kim Booster vehicle similarly elicited the kind of vibrant online chatter that makes Emmy recognition feel particularly appropriate—and far from a consolation prize.

Far more than the Oscars, the Emmys maintain a certain popularity threshold—if your show isn’t widely viewed, good luck breaking through. Dolly Parton specials and Black Mirror episodes kept saturating the TV movie races in recent years because the actual films submitted for Emmy consideration just weren’t being watched enough. While I’d mostly written the form off for significant showings in the nominations as a result, it’s not a shock, in retrospect, to see movies like Prey, Fire Island, and Weird make a dent. They actually generated conversation.

The flip side of this is a subtler, creeping story: Only three limited series were nominated for writing this year, a rather dramatic halving from last year’s six. That once red-hot form is starting to cool off with the Television Academy (and, perhaps accordingly, viewers). Part of this has to do with the spring-calendar stacking that still goes on: spring premieres A Small Light, Love & Death, Mrs. Davis, White House Plumbers, and Dead Ringers all racked up single nominations at best, and none in the series, writing, or directing races—despite robust campaigns for all. A similar dynamic played out last year. Remember that true-crime splurge that resulted in a handful of acting nods, and nothing else?

It’s no secret that these shows, though often well-reviewed, have struggled to gain traction with viewers. Just two years ago, we had I May Destroy You, The Queen’s Gambit, Mare of Easttown, The Underground Railroad, and WandaVision in the same category. Of this year’s best limited-series nominees, meanwhile, only Beef and Fleishman Is in Trouble were true critical hits that also met enough eyeballs; of the rest of the field, Daisy Jones & the Six and Dahmer aren’t even Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and Obi Wan-Kenobi blasted through on its *Star Wars–*fueled blockbuster power alone.

This is not to say the TV movie field is perfect. It’s rounded out by the poorly received Hocus Pocus 2, surely in there for visibility alone, as well as another Dolly Parton movie. (Though credit where it’s due: Parton has received four Emmy nods in the last six years!) It’s still not easy, or comfortable, defining the category as it exists right now. But this year’s crop represents a return to form, so to speak, and a reminder that this is the place where such mid-budget, offbeat fare can both live and thrive. Where else will you get a nutty biopic, a gay rom-com, and a surprisingly great Predator sequel competing for one best movie prize? It’s the kind of unexpected, exciting contest the Emmys desperately need. A return to the main stage ought to be in order.