‘Hamnet’ wins People’s Choice Award at TIFF 2025

Chloé Zhao's "Hamnet," a poignant drama exploring William Shakespeare's marriage and the death of his young son, has won the coveted People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), announced Sunday.

The victory immediately positions the film as a strong contender in the upcoming Academy Awards race. TIFF's top audience prize has long been viewed as an Oscars bellwether, with winners frequently earning best picture nominations. That streak ran unbroken from 2012 until last year, when Mike Flanagan's Stephen King adaptation "The Life of Chuck" — released months later — slipped out of the awards spotlight.

"Hamnet," led by Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare, has already garnered an emotional reception at both TIFF and the Telluride Film Festival. Adapted from Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel, the story imagines how the grief over their son Hamnet's death may have inspired Shakespeare's masterpiece "Hamlet."

Focus Features is set to release the film in U.S. theatres on November 27. For Zhao, who previously won best picture and best director at the Oscars with "Nomadland" (2020) — also a TIFF People's Choice winner — the recognition marks another major step back into awards season contention.

This year's runners-up included two Netflix releases: Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein" and Rian Johnson's "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery". The international film audience award went to Park Chan-wook's "No Other Choice." In the festival's Midnight Madness lineup, Matt Johnson's "Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie" claimed the top spot, while Barry Avrich's "The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue" was honoured in the documentary category.

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