Emmys 2019: Black Mirror's Bandersnatch chooses the path of Best Television Movie

Netflix's Choose Your Own Adventure experiment with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch paid off big time when the movie took home the award for Best Television Movie at the 2019 Emmys Sunday night. The groundbreaking entertainment experience beat out two HBO projects—Brexit and Deadwood: The Movie—as well as Amazon Prime's King Lear.

"We really didn't expect this," said Black Mirror creator, Charlie Brooker onstage while he accepted the award. "Thank you to everyone at Netflix on the creative side and in the tech side in Los Gatos who pulled off a magic trick."

Brooker finished with a joke by addressing his kids and saying, "I can never limit your video game screen time again. If I do, I'm a disgusting hypocrite, it sometimes pays off."

Tonight's victory was just one of several enjoyed by the revolutionary piece of media, which took home the prize for Best Game Writing at this year's Nebula Awards back in May and Outstanding Creative Achievement in Interactive Media Within a Scripted Program at last weekend's Creative Emmys. The second honor was certainly earned since the film required a brand-new computer program just to map out all of the possibilities.

Written by Brooker, Bandersnatch tells the story of a young developer (Dunkirk's Fionn Whitehead) who slowly loses his mind while trying to adapt a sweeping fantasy novel into a video game in 1984. The film, which reportedly has a trillion different choice combinations, was directed by David Slade, a veteran of the anthology's Season 4 episode, "Metalhead." Despite mixed reviews from critics, Bandersnatch still managed to turn the internet upside down, leading to a whole variety of viral Twitter memes. 

Will Poulter, Craig Parkinson, Alice Lowe, and Asim Chaudhry all cost-star in the interactive movie, which is just the first of many adult-oriented Choose Your Own Adventure undertakings at Netflix.