TORONTO — Chloé Zhao’s period drama “Hamnet” won the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award, festival organizers announced Sunday, Sept. 14, 2025. Voted on by festival audiences, the honor is a frequent launching pad for awards campaigns, and Focus Features said the film will open in U.S. theaters, Nov. 26, 2025.
The People’s Choice prize is decided by audience ballots rather than a jury, and it has become one of the fall’s most closely watched Oscar indicators. Zhao has walked this path before: Her “Nomadland” won the same award in 2020 and later took best picture at the Academy Awards.
There was a small, unscripted flourish in the moment of victory. Zhao wasn’t in the room, and her recorded acceptance message played upside down during the livestream; TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey quipped, “Apologies for the error, but that is what this film does to your heart,” according to TheWrap’s festival report.
Hamnet and the grief story at the center
Based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, “Hamnet” turns the familiar Shakespeare mythos inward, focusing on Agnes — Shakespeare’s wife — and the family’s grief after the death of their 11-year-old son. The Associated Press reported that the film stars Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as Agnes, the name O’Farrell uses for Shakespeare’s wife in the book and the film.
O’Farrell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Zhao, said she wanted to pull the boy out of the margins of literary history. “I just always wanted to put the boy center stage,” she told People in a December interview. She also said Zhao’s approach benefited from not treating Shakespeare as untouchable — allowing the film to lean into emotion over reverence.
Hamnet’s long runway from announcement to TIFF win
Hollywood has tracked the project for years. In April 2023, Literary Hub noted Zhao’s plans to adapt O’Farrell’s book, which it said had won the Women’s Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. By early 2024, The Guardian reported that Mescal and Buckley were set to star in the adaptation, with Mescal calling the novel “devastating.” The TIFF win turns that long build into a public-facing boost as “Hamnet” heads into its U.S. opening.
Hamnet’s next stop: U.S. theaters
For American audiences, the Toronto win arrives as the movie’s release calendar starts to fill. Ticketing listings, including Fandango’s showtimes page, show “Hamnet” opening Wednesday, Nov. 26, with a listed runtime of 2 hours, 5 minutes.
The People’s Choice trophy doesn’t guarantee Oscars, but it does signal a rare mix of critical respect and broad audience response — a combination distributors chase heading into the holidays. After a festival run built on tears and standing ovations, “Hamnet” now faces a different test: whether its quiet portrait of grief can cut through a crowded marketplace and, in the process, remind moviegoers why old stories still feel urgent.
