Ten years ago, Netflix won its first Emmy and became the first streaming service ever to do so. It was a pretty big deal for a company that started off delivering DVDs in little red envelopes straight to your door. It was 2013, and House of Cards filmmaker David Fincher had just won Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series; the show went on to win two additional awards for Outstanding Casting and Cinematography. House of Cards was the first, paving the way for many more compelling, award-winning series over the years. Netflix has received 970 Emmy nominations to date and 184 wins. 

This year, Netflix garnered 103 nominations across 34 titles, which include some notable achievements: Tim Burton received his first Emmy nomination for Wednesday, Nicole Byer became the most-nominated Black woman in the Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program category with four consecutive nominations (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023) for Nailed It!, and Ali Wong became the first Asian American actor to be nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Limited Series or TV Movie. Just don’t start any BEEF with her. 

Take a trip down memory lane as we have a look at some of our biggest hits over the years. 

Noh Juhan/Netflix

Big firsts

Whether you’re here for the most stressful game of tug-of-war ever or for the guy in a hotdog suit, your favorite shows have made some big strides at the Emmys. 

• In 2021, Netflix became the first streamer to win the Limited or Anthology Series category with The Queen’s Gambit. Checkmate! 
• That same year, The Crown became the first series to sweep all seven Drama categories nominations, and it won in each category except Guest Actor. It was a royally dramatic year for the series, and the show made history as Netflix’s first Drama series win. 
• Squid Game made Emmys history as the first non-English show to ever be nominated for best drama series
• Lee Jung-jae, Jung Ho-yeon, Lee Yoo-mi, and Oh Young-soo each earned their first ever Emmy nominations in 2022 for their roles in Squid Game. Lee Jung-jae and Lee Yoo-mi each got the green light when they won awards for Outstanding Lead Actor and Outstanding Guest Actress, respectively. 
• Hwang Dong-hyuk won the Emmy for Directing for a Drama Series for his work on Squid Game, making him the first Asian writer ever in the category. This was also the first win in this category for a non-English language series.
• Just this year, Paris Barclay became the first Black director to be nominated in the Drama, Comedy, and Limited Series category for Dahmer.

Repeat favorites 

We all have our favorite shows to come back to time and time again for a good comfort watch. And the Emmys agree! From Princess Diana to the Demogorgon, here are some repeat favorites. 

• For eight years in a row, Netflix has been nominated in the Outstanding Drama Series category — from 2013 to 2021— landing the first category win in 2021 with Season 4 of The Crown.
• Big Mouth was nominated three years in a row for Outstanding Animated Program, most recently in 2021, and Maya Rudolph won Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance in 2020 and 2021 for her role as Connie the Hormone Monstress. Because even the most prestigious awards can relate to the horrors of puberty. 
• Stranger Things has won the Sound Editing category every year it’s been eligible since Season 1. The series turned the Emmys Upside Down when it took its fourth award in the category in 2022, and has won 12 total Emmys since Season 1. 
• Julia Garner won Best Supporting Actress in a Drama Series every year she was nominated for her role as Ruth Langmore in Ozark. Even though her character famously doesn’t “know s**t about f**k.”
• The strange, dark, and sometimes beautiful world of Love, Death + Robots — created by the incomparable David Fincher — has won Outstanding Short Form Animated Program every year it’s been nominated and has earned a total of 13 Emmy awards over the years. Call it the Fincher effect, if you will. 

Ilana Panich-Linsman/Netflix

Records for the books 

You’ve probably broken some records while watching your favorite shows — maybe you’ve logged hours upon hours watching series like Queer Eye and Russian Doll. Well, your favorite shows have made some big records of their own.

• In 2021, Netflix became the leader for most wins in a single year for a streamer with 44 wins (tied with CBS’s 1974 record).
• In 2020, Netflix set the record for most nominations in a single year of any streamer, cable network, or broadcaster with 160 nominations.
• Moira Demos and Laura Ricciardi won three Emmys in 2016 for their work detailing the wrongful conviction of Steven Avery in the true crime documentary series Making a Murderer, with Demos winning a fourth for her editing work.
• Queer Eye has won the Outstanding Structured Reality Program category five years in a row from 2018 to 2022, holding the record for most wins in that category. The Fab Five — who’ve taught us all some valuable lessons in how to live our best lives — just earned the series its sixth nomination.
• Netflix is the first streaming service ever to land three spots, on three separate occasions, for nominations in the Outstanding Drama Series category. In 2017, those series were House of Cards, Stranger Things, and The Crown; followed by Ozark, Stranger Things, and The Crown in 2020; and Ozark, Squid Game, and Stranger Things Season 4, Vol. 1 in 2022. 
• This one’s for all the sweet birthday babies: In 2020, Russian Doll became the most nominated comedy series ever in Netflix history with 13 total nominations. 
• The following year, The Crown and The Queen’s Gambit each won 11 awards, the most wins by a Netflix series in a single year.  
• And in 2022, President Barack Obama became the second former president to ever win an Emmy, winning Outstanding Narrator for taking us all on a tour of Our Great National Parks. (The first was Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.)