72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards

The 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards honored the best in artistic and technical achievement in American prime time television programming from June 1, 2019, until May 31, 2020, as chosen by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. The awards were presented across five ceremonies; the first four were held on September 14 through 17, 2020, and were streamed online, while the fifth was held on September 19 and broadcast on FXX. They were presented in a virtual ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic; Nicole Byer hosted the event. A total of 106 Creative Arts Emmys were presented across 100 categories. The ceremonies preceded the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards, held on September 20.

The Mandalorian and Watchmen led all programs with seven wins each, followed by Saturday Night Live with six and RuPaul's Drag Race with five. Watchmen was also the most-nominated program with 15 nominations; The Mandalorian followed with 14, while The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Saturday Night Live each received 12. Overall program awards went to 22 shows, including The Apollo, Bad Education, The Cave, Cheer, Dave Chappelle: Sticks & Stones, Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, The Last Dance, Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, Live in Front of a Studio Audience, Queer Eye, Rick and Morty, Saturday Night Live, and We Are the Dream, among others. Netflix led all networks with 124 nominations; it also tied with HBO for the most wins, as each received 19 awards.

Winners and nominees


Winners are listed first, highlighted in boldface, and indicated with a double dagger (‡).  Sections are based upon the categories listed in the 2019–2020 Emmy rules and procedures. Area awards and juried awards are denoted next to the category names as applicable. For simplicity, producers who received nominations for program awards have been omitted.

Nominations and wins by program
For the purposes of the lists below, any wins in juried categories are assumed to have a prior nomination.

Ceremony order and presenters
The following categories were presented at each ceremony:

Ceremony information
The 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards were originally scheduled for September 12 and 13, 2020, falling a week before the main ceremony and spreading the awards across two nights as had been done in previous years. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremonies were moved in June to several unspecified nights in a virtual format, with a five-night plan being outlined in early August. The new format divided the ceremonies by genre as follows: The first four ceremonies were streamed on Emmys.com via a YouTube livestream, with the fifth night airing on FXX. All of the virtual ceremonies were produced by Bob Bain Productions, and Nicole Byer served as the host for the event from the Television Academy's headquarters in North Hollywood. While events during the ceremony were called live and winners were not known until being revealed to the director, all footage was pre-taped; each nominee was asked to submit an acceptance speech in advance, with only the winners' speeches being broadcast. While the ceremony mostly proceeded without a hitch, one notable error occurred when Jason Bateman was read as the winner for Guest Actor in a Drama Series, while Ron Cephas Jones – the actual winner – was listed on screen. Other glitches included the screen listing "Need Names" instead of recognizing the hairstyling team from Hollywood and an incorrect graphics card for Maya Rudolph's win for Guest Actress in a Comedy Series.
 * Monday, September 14: Reality and Nonfiction
 * Tuesday, September 15: Variety
 * Wednesday, September 16: Scripted (Night One)
 * Thursday, September 17: Scripted (Night Two)
 * Saturday, September 19: "An eclectic mix of awards across all genres"

Category and rule changes
Changes that affected Creative Arts categories included: Four categories were also moved to the Creative Arts ceremony from the main ceremony: Outstanding Directing for a Variety Series, Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series, Outstanding Variety Sketch Series, and Outstanding Television Movie.
 * Outstanding Informational Series or Special was changed to Outstanding Hosted Nonfiction Series or Special.
 * Awards for interactive programs were realigned into the new categories of Outstanding Derivative Interactive Program, Outstanding Original Interactive Program, and Outstanding Interactive Extension of a Linear Program.
 * Makeup and hairstyling awards were rearranged; the new categories were divided into period and contemporary awards, similar to costume categories.
 * Category descriptions for Outstanding Structured Reality Program and Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program were revised.
 * Outstanding Children's Program now limited voting to only children's programming and animation peer groups.
 * Short-form programs could not exceed 17 minutes in length.