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MTV’s 2026 nominee list puts Madonna ahead of Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter, with a single visual flick driving nearly her entire tally.
MTV rel its full slate of nominees for the 2026 Video Music Awards on August 18, and the top line was not close. Madonna collected 11 nominations, the most of any artist on the ballot, ahead of Taylor Swift‘s nine, and seven apiece for Ariana Grande and Sabrina Carpenter. Bruno Mars, GENER8ION and Morgan Wallen round out the artists with multiple nods, but none approach Madonna’s spread across the night’s biggest categories.
Her nominations land in Video of the Year, Artist of the Year and Song of the Year, the three marquee categories, alongside Best Collaboration, Best Dance, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Choreography and Best Visual Effects. That’s eleven categories built almost entirely around a single project: the visual film Confessions II and its accompanying single with Carpenter, “Bring Your Love.”
Peacock Theater at L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles, host venue for the 2026 MTV Video Music Awards
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The nominations trace back to a single project released across the first half of 2026. Madonna premiered Confessions II as a short film at the Tribeca Festival on June 5, screening at the Beacon Theatre in New York with a post-film conversation moderated by Anderson Cooper after Jimmy Fallon’s initially announced slot fell through. Directed by TORSO, the filmmaking duo of David Toro and Solomon Chase, the film runs past ten minutes and is built around the first six tracks of her fifteenth studio album of the same name, released via Warner Records on July 3.
MTV’s Video of the Year nomination credits the piece simply as “Confessions II – The Film,” and it’s the same project driving her nods in Best Dance, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Choreography and Best Visual Effects. The choreography, credited to Damien Jalet, who previously worked with Madonna on the Madame X Tour, sits inside a film that also leans on costuming pulled from Dolce & Gabbana archives, including a rhinestone top from the house’s fall 1991 collection.
The film’s lead single, “Bring Your Love,” a connection with Carpenter released April 30, earns Madonna two more nominations on its own: Song of the Year and Best Collaboration, both shared credits with Carpenter. Between the film and the single, that’s nine of Madonna’s eleven nominations tied to one release cycle. The other two, Artist of the Year, are a body-of-work category rather than tied to a specific video.
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Swift’s nine nominations come almost entirely from a single video as well, “The Fate of Ophelia,” which appears in Video of the Year, Best Pop, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing and Best Choreography, plus a second video, “Opalite,” nominated separately for Best Direction, and her own Artist of the Year nod.
The two singers end up facing off directly in six of the night’s categories: Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, Best Direction, Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Choreography and Best Visual Effects. It’s the most direct overlap between the two on a VMA ballot in years, and it sets up Video of the Year as a genuine two-way conversation between Swift’s “Fate of Ophelia” and Madonna’s “Confessions II” film, alongside Grande’s “hate that i made you love me,” Mars’ “I Just Might,” Carpenter’s “Tears” and GENER8ION’s “STORM starring Yung Lean.”
Swift also carries a separate storyline into the night. A win in any category would make her the most decorated artist in VMA history outright; she currently sits tied with Beyoncé at 30 competitive wins apiece.
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Madonna’s 2026 tally extends a run that stretches back to the award show’s earliest years. She has been nominated at the VMAs in every decade of her career, dating to the 1980s, and has 19 competitive wins to her name. In 1986, she made VMA history as the first solo female artist to win the Video Vanguard Award, the show’s career-achievement honor.
Her nomination record inside individual craft categories is difficult to overstate. Madonna holds the all-time nomination record for Best Female Video with 12, for Best Choreography with 12, for Best Cinematography with 10, and for Best Art Direction with six, a record she shares with Lady Gaga and Swift. Two of this year’s nominations, in Best Cinematography and Best Choreography, extend records she already held outright before the 2026 ballot was announced.
She has posted nomination-leading years at the VMAs before. In 1990, “Vogue” drew nine nominations, the most of the night. In 1998, “Ray of Light” and “Frozen” combined for nine nominations and six wins, including Video of the Year, making her both the top nominee and top winner that year. The 2026 slate, at 11 nominations, is now her widest nomination spread at a single ceremony.
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Beyond the top of the ballot, MTV’s Best New Artist category nominates Bella Kay, CORTIS, Magnus Ferrell, Malcolm Todd, Myles Smith, Sienna Spiro and Stella Lefty. Genre category spread nominations across a wide range of 2026 releases: Cardi B, Drake, Megan Thee Stallion, Travis Scott and Tyler, The Creator in Best Hip-Hop; Bad Bunny, KAROL G, Rosalía and Shakira in Best Latin; and BLACKPINK, BTS, CORTIS, KATSEYE and LE SSERAFIM in Best K-Pop.
Best Dance pits Madonna against Lady Gaga and Doechii’s “RUNAWAY,” Harry Styles’ “Aperture,” PinkPantheress’ “Stateside,” Slayyyter’s “DANCE…” and Tate McRae‘s “Nobody’s Girl.” Best Alternative nominates Geese, mgk and Fred Durst, Noah Kahan, Olivia Rodrigo, SOMBR, Tame Impala and twenty one pilots. Song of the Year, notably, does not repeat the Video of the Year lineup: BTS, Ella Langley, HUNTR/X, Olivia Dean, PinkPantheress and RAYE join Madonna and Carpenter’s “Bring Your Love” in that category instead.
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The 2026 MTV Video Music Awards broadcast live from the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, September 27, at 7:30 p.m. Eastern and 4:30 p.m. Pacific. The two-hour ceremony simulcasts across CBS, MTV and Paramount+ in the United States, with a global stream on Paramount+ and MTV the following day. It marks a shift in venue after years of New York ceremonies, and lands in the same CBS awards-season slot the network has used for the Grammys since 1973, ahead of that show’s planned move to ABC in 2027.
