Chloé Zhao’s drama "Hamnet" won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, giving the film a prominent position on the awards-season calendar and bolstering its prospects for Academy Award consideration.
The film, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel and starring Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare, dramatizes the grief that followed the death of the couple’s 11-year-old son, Hamnet, and how that loss may have influenced Shakespeare’s writing of "Hamlet." Focus Features plans a theatrical release on Nov. 27.
Winners of TIFF’s top audience honor have often gone on to receive best-picture nominations at the Academy Awards, a correlation that has held nearly every year since 2012. The streak appeared to falter last year when Mike Flanagan’s adaptation "The Life of Chuck" took the prize but was not widely released until the following June and did not figure into the Oscar race.
"Hamnet" has drawn strong emotional responses at festival screenings, including Telluride and Toronto, where attendees cast votes for the People’s Choice Award. Zhao, who won best director and whose 2020 film "Nomadland" won best picture, returns to a familiar awards landscape with a film that centers on intimate family trauma and literary history.
Runners-up for TIFF’s main audience prize were two Netflix releases: Guillermo del Toro’s "Frankenstein" and Rian Johnson’s "Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery." The audience award for international film went to Park Chan-wook’s "No Other Choice." In the festival’s Midnight Madness section, Matt Johnson’s "Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie" won the audience prize, and the documentary award went to Barry Avrich’s "The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue."
Festival organizers said the People’s Choice Awards were determined by votes from festivalgoers. Industry observers note that a TIFF audience win can increase a film’s visibility among distributors and awards voters, though a festival prize does not guarantee later nominations.
Zhao’s return to high-profile festival acclaim underscores continued interest in films that reexamine historical figures through contemporary, human-focused lenses. "Hamnet" joins a slate of fall releases positioning themselves for awards consideration while courting wide audiences with established actors and literary source material.
Focus Features’ announced release and the film’s festival reception set a timetable for awards campaigning in the months ahead, as studios and distributors prepare for the season that culminates with the Academy and other industry prizes.