Despite the ongoing explosion in prestige limited series, the form hasn’t yielded the sort of best-actor slugfests awards lovers dream of predicting and analyzing. Last year, Ewan McGregor of the little-seen, mixed-reviewed Halston triumphed over the likes of Hugh Grant and Paul Bettany—who gave strong performances in series where their female counterparts were first on the call sheet—and two Hamilton actors who’d already won Tonys. In 2020, Mark Ruffalo triumphed for a dual role in another mutedly received production, HBO’s I Know This Much Is True.

Now compare those winners to the last two lead-actress champs: Last September, Kate Winslet won a fiercely competitive race for the beloved Mare of Easttown; the year before that, Regina King edged out a top-of-her-game Cate Blanchett (Mrs. America) for her badass brilliance in Watchmen.

There’s a reason for the discrepancy: The category for best actress in a limited series or TV movie has long been a haven for iconic stars of a certain age. Other winners over the past decade range from Julianne Moore (Game Change) to Jessica Lange (American Horror Story) to Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge) to Nicole Kidman (Big Little Lies)—Oscar winners all. Men of these performers’ stature hadn’t made the move as readily to the small screen, because big-screen opportunities had remained plentiful.  (Remember Barry Pepper winning for The Kennedys?) But as things in the industry start evening out just a bit, 2022 feels like something of a turning point. The limited-series actor race is, at last, an honest-to-God bloodbath.

The season’s overwhelming spring glut is adding more star power—and worthy work—to a conversation that had already been feeling crowded. Thursday marked the premiere of FX’s Under the Banner of Heaven, which finds Andrew Garfield in a very different mode from the exuberance which brought him an Oscar nod earlier this year for Tick, Tick…Boom!; his subtle, empathic turn as a haunted Utah detective echoes Winslet’s Mare work to some extent, as we’re immersed in his pursuit of truth and decency. It’s hard not to root for him.

Then another big name enters the true-crime fray next week in Colin Firth. Taking on his first series role in decades, the Oscar winner (The King’s Speech) bracingly transforms in The Staircase, playing a widower who may or may not be a murderer too. Right along with the show, he keeps you on your toes as the mystery around his wife’s gruesome death turns more bizarre by the episode. (The limited series, costarring Toni Collette, premieres Thursday on HBO Max.)

Oh, and got room for another Oscar winner? Jared Leto may still be recovering from the train wreck that was Morbius, but the fact remains he earned some career-best notices for his turn as WeWork founder Adam Neumann in Apple TV+’s WeCrashed. Playing opposite a dialed-in Anne Hathaway, the infamous Method actor finds a blinkered, destructive humanity in this troubled startup visionary, and disappears into the role.

No one in this trio has received a lead-acting Emmy nomination before, and in any other year, you could safely count them all in. But the field this season is rich, varied, and complicated; as ever with the Television Academy, the final selections will largely come down to the shows voters connect with most. It’s why Michael Keaton remains a steady front-runner: The Oscar nominee (Birdman) wrenchingly led one of the fall’s most successful limited series, in Hulu’s Dopesick; the show already performed well with industry guilds, including a major SAG win for Keaton, indicating significant peer support. If other late-2021 hits like HBO Max’s Station Eleven or Netflix’s Midnight Mass stick around in voters’ minds, their stars, Himesh Patel and Hamish Linklater, shouldn’t be counted out for nods, though lack of name recognition could be fatal in such a celeb-heavy year. Take the following examples.

Oscar Isaac has two contenders in Disney+’s Marvel entry Moon Knight and HBO’s Scenes From a Marriage, the latter of which costarred recent Oscar winner Jessica Chastain. Prime Video’s A Very British Scandal brings Paul Bettany right back into contention, as he does fine work here opposite Claire Foy. Overall, I’ve heard rumblings that many studios have more than they know what to do with. Beyond Leto, Apple has Oscar nominee Samuel L. Jackson, stellar in the under-the-radar The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, and Tom Hiddleston in the upcoming The Essex Serpent. If HBO didn’t have enough already, Jon Bernthal is mesmerizing atop its universally acclaimed We Own This City—even if actors on David Simon shows have tended to have a bizarrely tough time finding recognition. And in the TV movie world, Ben Foster is campaigning for the TIFF premiere The Survivor, which debuted to solid reviews on the platform. Hulu’s limited-series slate is pretty actress-heavy, but Sebastian Stan will get a push for the buzzy Pam & Tommy.

With all this noise, it might be tough for more upstart networks to make enough of a dent—I’m thinking of priorities in Peacock’s Joshua Jackson for Dr. Death, Starz’s Sean Penn for Gaslit, and Paramount+’s Miles Teller for The Offer. The latter two shows are just getting started, so we’ll see if they can connect.