Handicapping the Unscripted Categories at the 2022 MTV Movie & TV Awards

This Sunday MTV will once again present their annual Movie & TV Awards, honoring the best youth-appealing entertainment products, with big nomination tallies going to Spider-Man: No Way Home, The Batman, and Euphoria. Airing back-to-back with the scripted awards will be the second annual unscripted awards, honoring the best in reality TV, talk shows, and social media.

It's somewhat odd that MTV isn't making a bigger deal out of its unscripted awards, given how much the network could put its stamp on the concept of awarding the stars and talent behind TV's biggest reality shows. Plenty of awards shows honor movies and scripted TV, but this one's currently the only show nominating Candiace and Mia's salad-throwing fight from The Real Housewives of Potomac, and they should be trumpeting that more!

With that in mind, we're going to give The MTV Movie & TV Awards: Unscripted the attention it deserves, breaking down all 12 categories and offering winner predictions for each:

Best Music Documentary

Janet Jackson
Jeen-yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy
Oasis Knebworth 1996
Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)
The Beatles: Get Back

Last year this category was packed with huge pop stars with giant fanbases — Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Shawn Mendes, Billie Eilish, and Britney Spears all lost out to BTS — but this year it's a shorter list with more legacy acts like Janet Jackson, Oasis, and a little band called The Beatles. Will the critical acclaim afforded to Get Back mean much in the face of the hordes of young fans streaming in votes for Olivia Rodrigo? We doubt it. Predicted Winner: Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)

Best Docu-Reality Show

Jersey Shore: Family Vacation
Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta
Selling Sunset
Summer House
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

Last year's awards didn't overwhelmingly go to MTV-produced shows, but this category went to Jersey Shore: Family Vacation, which could make back-to-back wins this time around. Netflix's Selling Sunset is likely its biggest competition, given that the Bravo shows may end up cancelling that demographic out. Predicted Winner: Jersey Shore: Family Vacation

Best Reality Star

Chris "CT" Tamburello, The Challenge
Chrishell Stause, Selling Sunset
Lindsay Hubbard, Summer House
Teresa Giudice, The Real Housewives of New Jersey
Willow Pill, RuPaul's Drag Race

This is a new category this year, and it's hilarious that Chrishell Stause got nominated over her co-star Christine Quinn. One imagines that the slander campaign has already begun. The in-house choice for MTV viewers will be CT, who's been a star on the network for two decades now, and this would be a nice way of recognizing that fact. But don't underestimate a hugely energized Drag Race faction who will come out in droves to vote for the show's most-recent winner. Predicted Winner: Willow Pill.

Best Reality Romance

Joe Amabile and Serena Pitt, Bachelor in Paradise
Loren and Alexei Brovarnik, Loren & Alexei: After the 90 Days
Nany Gonzalez and Kaycee Clark, The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies
Tom Sandoval and Ariana Maddix, Vanderpump Rules
Yandy and Mendeecees, Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta

Another new category this year, and one which could go in a few different directions. Vanderpump Rules was forever ago, but even if it wasn't, it's hard to imagine fans voting in huge numbers for Tom and Ariana. Nany and Kaycee are the in-house choice for MTV fans, though this might be where Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta comes through. Predicted Winner: Yandy and Mendeecees

Best Competition Series

American Idol
Dancing with the Stars
RuPaul's Drag Race
The Challenge: Spies, Lies & Allies
The Masked Singer

Drag Race, The Challenge, and The Masked Singer are all repeat nominees, while Idol and Dancing with the Stars are both long-in-the-tooth legacy titles. It's surprising not to see Survivor here after that show's resurgence over the last year. Regardless, Drag Race keeps charging forward with no signs of decline, so it feels like a safe bet to repeat last year's win. Predicted Winner: RuPaul's Drag Race

Best Lifestyle Show

Bar Rescue
Dr. Pimple Popper
Making It
Selena + Chef
Queer Eye

Lots of lifestyles being represented here, from bar rehabilitation to pimple popping to inspiring people to change their lives through the inspirational power of queerness. There's also some celebrity star power, between Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman on Making It and Selena Gomez on Selena + Chef. Our guess is it's between Selena and the Fab Five for the win, and since Selena won the now-discontinued "Best New Unscripted Series" category last year, we'll give her and her fans the edge. Predicted Winner: Selena + Chef

Best Unscripted Series

Heart to Heart
Teen Mom: Family Reunion
The D'Amelio Show
The Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip
Queen of the Universe

Teen Mom is the in-house choice, and Queen of the Universe is adjacent to the Drag Race juggernaut, but one imagines Charli D'Amelio's legions of fans will show up big for her Hulu series in this category. Predicted Winner: The D'Amelio Show

Best Talk/Topical Show

The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
The Drew Barrymore Show
The Kelly Clarkson Show
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon

While Trevor Noah triumphed in this category last year, we think the late-night boys can go squabble among themselves and wait for the Primetime Emmy nominations to come out, for now it's Kelly Clarkson vs. Drew Barrymore in the battle of daytime's best, most fun, and most viral talk shows. Drew is quirky enough to win over the MTV crowd, but Kelly's out there with a new cover song on Twitter every day, which could give her the edge. Predicted Winner: The Kelly Clarkson Show

Best Host

Charlamagne Tha God, Tha God's Honest Truth
Gordon Ramsay, MasterChef
Kelly Clarkson, The Kelly Clarkson Show
Rob Dyrdek, Ridiculousness
RuPaul, RuPaul's Drag Race

Dyrdek's presence in this category might have you wondering if the fix is in given Ridiculousness's utter chokehold on the MTV daily lineup, but he was nominated last year as well and RuPaul still won. While we wouldn't rule out a Kelly Clarkson double win, Ru's empire building probably pays off here like it did last year. Predicted Winner: RuPaul

Breakthrough Social Star

Bella Poarch
Benito Skinner
Caleb Hearon
Khaby Lame
Megan Stalter

If you've seen anyone in your social feeds passing around that "Hi, Gay" meme, you'll know why Megan Stalter is probably the favorite here, and it doesn't hurt that she stars in the twice-nominated Hacks as well. Predicted Winner: Megan Stalter

Best Fight

Bosco vs. Lady Camden, RuPaul's Drag Race
Candiace Dillard Bassett vs. Mia Thornton — salad toss fight, The Real Housewives of Potomac
Christine Quinn vs. Chrishell Stause, Selling Sunset
Danielle Olivera vs. Ciara Miller vs. Lindsay Hubbard, Summer House
Margaret Josephs vs. Teresa Giudice, The Real Housewives of New Jersey

As popular as Drag Race is, the Bosco-Lady Camden fight was barely a fight and will likely, and deservedly, be a runner-up. The Summer House fight was vicious, but the show probably doesn't have enough fans to elevate it over the other Bravo entry, Teresa-Margaret, which seems old hat by now. Christine vs. Chrishell is probably the highest-profile feud and is likely the favorite to win, although Candiace vs. Mia and the salad throwing is easily the year's most memorable. Predicted Winner: Christine vs. Chrishell

Best Reality Return

Bethenny Frankel, The Big Shot with Bethenny
Kylie Sonique Love, RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars
Paris Hilton, Cooking with Paris and From Paris with Love
Sher, Ex on the Beach
Tami Roman, The Real World Homecoming: Los Angeles

The less said about Bethenny's HBO Max show, the better, and Tami's return to The Real World was riddled with bad vibes. Paris Hilton could get a lot of mileage out of representing two shows in the same category, but if there is any justice this will go to Kylie Sonique Love, whose comeback narrative from an early-season early elimination to becoming a trangender icon and winning All-Stars 6 was truly award-worthy. Alas, it'll probably be Paris. Predicted Winner: Paris Hilton

The MTV Movie & TV Awards: Unscripted airs live on MTV Sunday June 5th at 10:00 PM ET/7:00 PM PT.

Joe Reid is the senior writer at Primetimer and co-host of the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast. His work has appeared in Decider, NPR, HuffPost, The Atlantic, Slate, Polygon, Vanity Fair, Vulture, The A.V. Club and more.