Former President Barack Obama is three-for-three when it comes to winning Emmys, with his latest win Sunday (Sept. 7) at the 67th Creative Arts Emmy Awards. The 44th president of the United States served as narrator for the natural history series Our Oceans, which let viewers experience the five oceans on Earth as “gateways to the unknown,” which aired on Netflix in November 2024. Obama was named as the narrator two months prior.
The former president was up against some stiff competition in the Outstanding Narrator category; the field included The Americas’ Tom Hanks, Octopus!’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Planet Earth: Asia’s David Attenborough and Erased: WW2’s Heroes of Color’s Idris Elba. Obama’s entry was the Our Oceans episode dedicated to the Indian Ocean. His win ties him with Attenborough, the 99-year-old biologist and host who has been nominated for a Creative Arts Emmy 12 times.
The Our Oceans series was produced by Freeborne Media and Wild Space Productions, along with executive producer James Honeybourne. Wild Space Productions was also involved in the production of Our Great National Parks, a five-part documentary series that premiered on Netflix in April 2022, which was also produced by Higher Ground Productions. That company was formed by the former president and former First Lady Michelle Obama in 2018.
The third win is also significant for former President Obama as it’s the first for a president in a competitive category. Former President Dwight Eisenhower was the first to receive an Emmy in 1956, which was the Governor’s Award at the Primetime Emmys due to his encouragement of the usage of television in society. Obama’s other Emmy Award wins were for his work on Our Great National Parks, and for the 2023 documentary Working: What We Do All Day which was also on Netflix. The former president wasn’t in attendance at the ceremony, which was held in Los Angeles, California. The 67th Creative Arts Emmy Awards was held over the weekend, and is slated to be aired on FXX on Sept. 13 (Saturday).
