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8 Emmy-Winning TV Shows for Grownups You Need to Watch

These series grabbed gold at this year's ceremony


spinner image Jimmy Kimmel hosting the 72nd Emmy Awards
Host Jimmy Kimmel shows all of the nominees attending the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards virtually.
ABC

The most adorable winner at the 2020 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony last night may have been the youngest in history — Zendaya, 24, from HBO's youth melodrama Euphoria, who surprisingly beat her distinguished elders Jennifer Aniston (The Morning Show), Laura Linney (Ozark) and Sandra Oh (Killing Eve). “She's younger than Baby Yoda!” exclaimed host Jimmy Kimmel. But the biggest winner of the night was a show for grownups, the comedy Schitt's Creek, whose star Catherine O'Hara, 66, expressed thanks for getting a rare chance in a youth-centric business “to play a woman of a certain age — my age — who fully gets to be her ridiculous self.” And plenty of other grownup performers took home the gold. Here are the winners’ shows you should catch up on watching now:

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Schitt's Creek (all the awards, pretty much)

In the early 1980s, Eugene Levy, 73, and Catherine O'Hara got Emmy nominations as writers on the legendary comedy show SCTV. What a difference a decade (or two, or three) makes: This year O'Hara and Levy — who play an ultrarich couple who go broke and have to move into a dilapidated hotel in a teensy town they had bought on a rich-person's whim — took home best performance wins, as did their costars Annie Murphy and Eugene's writer-actor-coproducer son, Daniel Levy. All told, Schitt's Creek swept all seven major series prize categories — the first time ever. What? You haven't seen it? Now's the time to catch up!

Watch it here: Pop TV, Netflix, CW Seed

Watchmen (Regina King, 49)

Another year, another Emmy! King, who also won an Oscar in 2019 for If Beale Street Could Talk, won her fourth Emmy for playing a masked superhero cop battling white-supremacist killers in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its themes and scenes, including disturbing flashbacks to the actual 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, could not be more resonant to 2020 audiences. Even if you’re not a fan of superhero or fantasy sci-fi shows, this is one worth discovering.

Watch it here: HBO

The Morning Show (Billy Crudup, 52)

Movie star Crudup (Almost Famous) won his first Emmy as the interestingly slippery, chameleonlike TV network executive Cory Ellison on Apple TV's first-ever Emmy winner, its $150 million flagship show about a TV news anchor (Jennifer Aniston, 51) and her cohost (Steve Carell, 58), who's mired by sexual misconduct allegations (a character not exclusively based on Matt Lauer, but the resonances are chilling).

Watch it here: Apple TV+

Succession (Cherry Jones, 63)

Jones took home the best guest actress award for her work in this savagely nasty show about a media conglomerate run by a scary patriarch (Emmy-nominated Brian Cox) who's locked in a mortal struggle with the son (Jeremy Strong) he tries to keep under his thumb. Strong beat his fellow nominee, Cox, for best lead actor, but Cox (74) is just as good. As is this series, which is one to binge-watch from the beginning.

Watch it here: HBO

spinner image Ron Cephas Jones speaks after receiving the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor In A Drama Series for his performance in "This Is Us."
Invision for the Television Academy/AP

This Is Us (Ron Cephas Jones, 63)

In a year when Black actors took a record 34.3 percent of the Emmy nominations, Jones earned his fourth consecutive nomination and his second win for playing the biological dad of series star Sterling K. Brown in this must-see hit about the lives and loves of an American family.

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Watch it here: NBC

I Know This Much Is True (Mark Ruffalo, 52)

Ruffalo won gold for pulling off the acting challenge of the year and playing identical twins — one struggling to help the other, who's afflicted with paranoid schizophrenia.

Watch it here: HBO

RuPaul's Drag Race (RuPaul, 59)

The world's most famous drag queen, RuPaul won his fifth consecutive Emmy victory as outstanding reality-competition host. “Believe in love and the power of love, OK?” he told fans. If you haven't checked in on this irresistible show, now's your chance.

Watch it here: VH1

spinner image Eddie Murphy accepts the Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor In A Comedy Series for his appearance on Saturday Night Live
Invision for the Television Academy/AP

Saturday Night Live (Eddie Murphy, 59)

At the Creative Arts Emmys ceremony held two weeks ago, Murphy won for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series for his historic comeback on Saturday Night Live.

Watch it here: Hulu

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