HBO's Best Thriller of the Decade Still Isn't Getting the Emmys Love It Deserves

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Kit Harington as Henry Muck sitting at and leaning on the piano in Industry Season 4

Published Jul 11, 2026, 5:47 PM EDT

Dyah (pronounced Dee-yah) is a Senior Author at Collider, responsible for both writing and transcription duties. She joined the website in 2022 as a Resource Writer before stepping into her current role in April 2023. As a Senior Author, she writes Features and Lists covering TV, music, and movies, making her a true Jill of all trades. In addition to her writing, Dyah also serves as an interview transcriber, primarily for events such as San Diego Comic-Con, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Sundance Film Festival.

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"Buy the dip, short the VIX, f**k Bitcoin." Truer words have never been spoken in HBO's financial thriller Industry. Not everyone understands finance lingo, but most people know what it's like to break into a field that only accepts the best of the best. At investment bank Pierpoint & Co., meritocracy is heavily encouraged. Everyone, from beady-eyed graduates to senior executives, is expected to prove their worth. What nobody mentions is the methods used to get there.

Industry has all the trademarks of a classic HBO series: a nuanced storyline, flawed yet sympathetic characters, and some of the most unforgiving twists on television. Yet unlike most of its HBO roster, Industry has never received its flowers from the Emmys — not even a single nomination, despite its growing audience and rave reviews. With the series approaching its fifth and final season, it's high time Industry received the Emmy recognition it deserves.

What Is 'Industry' About?

HBO's Industry is The Wolf of Wall Street meets Succession, and Season 1 follows a group of ambitious graduates competing for permanent positions at the prestigious, ultra-competitive Pierpoint & Co. They come from vastly different backgrounds, from working-class Harper Stern (Myha'la) to privileged heiress Yasmin Kara-Hanani (Marisa Abela). Assigned to different desks across the firm, they are taken under the wing of senior mentors — none more intimidating than the cold-blooded, bat-swinging Managing Director, Eric Tao (Ken Leung). Whether it's their shared American roots or their appetite for success, Eric and Harper's mentor-mentee relationship becomes the heart of Industry, mirroring the volatility of the trading floors as it swerves from mutual respect to pure manipulation.

On the other side of the spectrum, graduates Yasmin, Robert Spearing (Harry Lawtey), and Augustus "Gus" Sackey (David Jonsson) — most of whom come from respectable British universities — prove that elite education doesn't guarantee security at Pierpoint. They are often mocked for their softness, which doesn't bode well when they must pitch investment ideas to the overtly critical senior staff, who have no qualms about humiliating them in front of their colleagues. What they don't realize is that, unlike the rest of the graduates, Harper never actually finished college and got into Pierpoint with a fake transcript. While her grit impresses Eric, one small mistake that exposes her lie is enough to get her fired.

From Lowly Graduates to Senior Executives, Nobody Is Safe in 'Industry'

Industry explores not just the pursuit of power but also the cost of chasing it, which becomes especially clear in Season 2. Harper is no longer the student — she's on her way to becoming her own boss — but her ambition pushes her into increasingly unethical trading practices, even crossing lines that make Eric uncomfortable. That pursuit of power isn't limited to the trading floor, either. For Yasmin, empowerment comes from a much more taboo place. She reclaims her agency by taking control of her sexual encounters, though Season 3 reveals that this need for control stems from years of trauma and abuse.

Even those at the top aren't guaranteed power forever. Eric may have wielded his baseball bat (literally) over his subordinates, but his career is only as secure as Pierpoint's future. Such is the high-risk nature of global finance: Industry Season 3 shows how a legacy investment bank can collapse almost overnight, with even bigger players waiting to swallow Pierpoint whole. Eric may have power within the company, but he is powerless in the face of capitalism. No matter how hard he tries to steer Pierpoint away from disaster, his identity is inseparable from the firm. If Pierpoint goes down, he goes down with it too.

Despite High Ratings, 'Industry' Still Isn't Being Recognized at the Emmys

Marisa Abela sitting with her hands under her chin in Industry

Industry's continued snubbing by the Emmys proves that strong reviews alone aren't always enough to win over the Television Academy. Over four seasons, what was once a quiet pandemic debut slowly built an organic following, with its Rotten Tomatoes score climbing from 76% in Season 1 to 96% in Season 4, after peaking at 98% in Season 3. Despite modest viewership in its early years, HBO continued renewing the drama because it was relatively inexpensive to produce. By Season 4, its premiere drew more than 800,000 viewers in its first three days, marking the show's biggest debut yet.

The specific reason for the Television Academy overlooking Industry for awards consideration remains a mystery. Perhaps the UK-specific setting and finance-coded storyline make the series too niche for Emmy voters. While Emmy-winning HBO dramas like Succession and The White Lotus also feature an ensemble of insufferable characters, Industry pushes its characters so far beyond the moral line that they're difficult to root for. By the end of Season 4, the series delivers its darkest twist yet in a storyline that mirrors the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell scandal. Plenty of prestige dramas are dark, but Industry referencing a devastating real-life event may have made it a tougher sell for awards season.