Yes, Those HBO Shows You Like Won Emmys Again

Another year, another Emmy Awards ceremony, another crop of HBO programming that walks away buried in little gold statuettes.

Amongst it all, an Australian stands triumphant: celebrated local actor Ben Mendelsohn has won the Emmy Award for Supporting Actor, Drama, for his role in Netflix original Bloodline, fighting off competition from high-profile Game Of Thrones stars such as Peter Dinklage and Kit Harington, as well as Better Call Saul's Jonathan Banks, House Of Cards' Michael Kelly and Hollywood veteran Jon Voight, for Ray Donovan.

Primarily, HBO has two mainstays to thank for another year of solid returns at the event; firstly, evergreen nominee Veep, which this year took out victories in the Comedy Series category as well as picking up a(nother) Best Lead Actress, Comedy award for series star Julia Louis-Dreyfus — her fifth consecutive win in the category, and her sixth all up, a record-breaking effort that sees the former Seinfeld star surpassing such giants as Candace Bergen and Mary Tyler Moore.

She wasn't alone in bearing the flag for the stalwart cable network, however; aforementioned perennial success story Game Of Thrones also contributed to the total, winning the title of best Drama Series as well as nabbing nods for Directing For A Drama and Writing For A Drama Series (both for the episode Battle Of The Bastards), ultimately winning 12 of its 24 nominations and becoming the single-most Emmy-awarded show in history in the process, surpassing Frasier's previous record of 38 Emmys to its name.

That said, HBO's rivals at FX put in a remarkable performance of their own, helped greatly by their five wins for true-crime tale The People V OJ Simpson: American Crime Story, which took out not only the Best Limited Series award but garnered victory nods for Courtney B Vance (Lead Actor, TV Movie/Limited Series), Sterling K Brown (Supporting Actor, TV Movie/Limited Series) and Sarah Paulson (Lead Actress, TV Movie/Limited Series), while the show's episode, Marcia, Marcia, Marcia, won the Writing For A TV Movie/Limited Series award. Being a product of the same network, it's hard to imagine FX being too upset that OJ beat out Fargo to pretty much everything it was nominated for. Let's be real — they had that Limited Series crop of awards locked down.

Further winners of note include Tatiana Maslany, who won the Lead Actress, Drama, category for her role in Orphan Black, while heartthrob du jour Rami Malek won the Lead Actor equivalent for Mr Robot. Jeffrey Tambor claimed the win for Lead Actor, Comedy, for a second year running for his role in Transparent, while Saturday Night Live cast member (and Ghostbusters breakout) Kate McKinnon won the Supporting Actress, Comedy award. Louie Anderson was named best Supporting Actor, Comedy, for his work on Baskets. Additionally, Dame Maggie Smith made sure the last year of Downton Abbey was one to remember with another award-winning performance, taking out Supporting Actress, Drama, against Thrones contenders Emilia Clarke, Lena Headey and Maisie Williams.

Interestingly, Last Week Tonight With John Oliver beat out more "traditional" chat shows — The Late Late Show With James Corden, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and even Real Time With Bill Maher and Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee — to win the Variety Talk Series award, and celebrated comedians Keegan Michael Key and Jordan Peele went out on a high note by winning the Emmy for Variety Sketch Series for the last season of their acclaimed team-up Key & Peele. Also flying the flag for POC comedic excellence were Aziz Ansari and Alan Yang, who jointly picked up the win — but not the speech time — for Writing For A Comedy Series for the Parents episode of their Netflix series Master Of None.

See Vanity Fair for a full breakdown of the evening's nominees and winners.