The 50th Toronto International Film Festival has crowned its top winner, and it may have just shifted the entire Oscar race. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet has captured the festival’s prestigious People’s Choice Award, instantly making it the new frontrunner for Best Picture.
The historical drama stars Paul Mescal, Jessie Buckley, and Joe Alwyn in an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s bestselling novel about Shakespeare’s son. Zhao’s win is especially notable as it makes her the first filmmaker to ever take home the People’s Choice Award twice, following her 2020 victory with Nomadland.
Since the Academy expanded the Best Picture field in 2009, TIFF’s Audience Award has been one of the most reliable Oscar indicators. Previous winners like Green Book (2018) and Nomadland (2020) went on to win Best Picture, while others such as The Fabelmans (2022) became major contenders.
This year’s race was stacked, with Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein landing the runner-up spot, followed by Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery in third place. On the documentary side, Barry Avrich’s The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue took the audience prize, while Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice secured the International People’s Choice Award.
How Good Is ‘Hamnet’?
Collider’s Ross Bonaime was one of a number of critics who were absolutely blown away by the film, claiming it would “rip your heart out” and calling it “one of the year’s best movies”. So it sounds like it might be decent, right? Bonaime picked out Mescal and Buckley for particular praise, too:
Both Buckley and Mescal are incredible in Hamnet, showing an unflinching emotional rawness. The complete and utter destruction of one’s soul is exactly what Buckley is portraying, and it’s nothing short of magnificent what she’s able to pull off here. Not only is she heartbreaking in the major moments, but it’s in her smaller touches that her role of Agnes has a remarkable amount of power. Even just reaching out a hand at the right moment or the utter confusion of who she is now that her son is gone make for some of the most powerful scenes in Hamnet. It’s a gorgeous performance that will burrow itself into your heart.
Bonaime concluded by stating that Hamnet “captures the beautiful aching that makes up life in all its forms, and it makes for one of the most profound and staggering works you’ll see this year”.
Hamnet hits theaters on November 27, just in time for the awards season.
