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In Theaters Now
- 2025
- PG-13
- Focus Features
- 2 h 5 m
- 2025
- PG-13
- Focus Features
- 2 h 5 m
Summary Hamnet tells the powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
Directed By: Chloé Zhao
Written By: Chloé Zhao, Maggie O'Farrell
In Theaters Now
- 2025
- PG-13
- Focus Features
- 2 h 5 m
- 2025
- PG-13
- Focus Features
- 2 h 5 m
Hamnet
6.7
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Summary Hamnet tells the powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.
Directed By: Chloé Zhao
Written By: Chloé Zhao, Maggie O'Farrell
Where to Watch
Not available in your country?
ExpressVPN
Get 3 Extra months free
$6.67/mth
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 46 Critic Reviews
83
83% Positive
38 Reviews
38 Reviews
17% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim Based on 46 Critic Reviews
83
83% Positive
38 Reviews
38 Reviews
17% Mixed
8 Reviews
8 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Dec 2, 2025
The last moments of Hamnet are transcendent, and perhaps the most moving thing I’ve seen on screen this year.
Sep 11, 2025
With an aching heart, lush visuals, and magnetic acting, Hamnet is undoubtedly one of the best movies of the year and will continue to resonate with audiences for years to come.
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 41 User Ratings
6.7
59% Positive
24 Ratings
24 Ratings
22% Mixed
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
20% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable Based on 41 User Ratings
6.7
59% Positive
24 Ratings
24 Ratings
22% Mixed
9 Ratings
9 Ratings
20% Negative
8 Ratings
8 Ratings
Dec 2, 2025
Hamnet is my favourite film of the year so far in almost every aspect of filmmaking. The writing is absolutely perfect. The characters are layered, lovable, relatable and they feel like reel human beings. When things get revealed about them, it's shown, not said and it's also subtle, basically they don't push it in your face, but if you look, you'll definitely see. The dialogues fit the medieval (I know it's set in early modern aged) environment and still feel natural, which is a combination I find to be very rare. The story is an emotional roller coaster. That's probably the main reason this is my favourite of 2025 so far above Sinners and One Battle After Another. The directing is great, it's amazing how the tone of this film isn't messed up despite the range of emotions this film wants the audience to experience. The cinematography is absolutely incredible. The cameras used here are not as exclusive as the ones used in the previously mentioned films, but boy is it a visual feast. I don't know how long it's been since I've seen such long takes and to achieve the long takes the camera movement and angles have to be perfect. The lighting is mostly natural or part of the scene, which I love. The editing is great, I would naturally think a movie like this would bore me, but this didn't drag at all. The production design and the visual effects create a perfectly believable medieval environment. The casting perfectly balances fame and talent, while everyone fits their role too. The acting performances carry the movie to Best Picture level. And not just the leads, everyone and I have to note that the long takes enhance the already amazing achievements. Hamnet would be my vote for Best Picture so far if I was a member of the Academy.
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Nov 30, 2025
Most of the movie ensconces the viewer between a tapestry of lucid, vital cinematography and a wall of the rarest acting. It’s stingy with narrative arc, which makes the comparatively focused ending all the more of an emotion wallop.
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Dec 5, 2025
Hamnet is another slow burn from Chloe Zhao, but when it really unleashes its magic it's an unstoppable force enhanced by Jessie Buckley's performance. A beautiful examination of mourning and artistic catharsis.
Dec 5, 2025
Zhao, bouncing back from the Marvel “Eternals” paycheck picture/debacle, serves up a touching romance between a distracted young man of letters and a woman so attuned to nature she hunts with a pet hawk, knows the uses of every herb and tree and the incantations that go with their preparation and is thus labeled the “daughter of a witch.”
Aug 30, 2025
It’s a masterful reflection on how grief tears us apart, and the ways in which we try to put ourselves back together again. It is a film that lingers long after the credits roll, embedding its quiet power into the viewer’s mind and heart, a meditation on loss that is both intimate and universal.
Dec 1, 2025
For all its powerful elements, though, Hamnet rings a bit hollow at its core. Perhaps the grand tragedies are just too overwhelming for some viewers to see beyond. I cried, yes, but in the end, I felt no closer to the mysterious bard—let alone to the people he loved, all those hundreds of years ago.
Nov 29, 2025
It's true that many viewers have already fallen under its spell, but Zhao and O'Farrell have stripped away so much of what makes the novel magical – the time-travelling structure, the hypnotic prose rhythms, the internal monologues and the tiny, tangible details – that what's left is no more profound or authentic than any other costume drama set in ye olde days.
Nov 28, 2025
Hamnet shows the raw, human grief, a story where love and loss become inseparable, and how art is born from heartbreak. A wonderful and Heartbreaking movie and a must watch for film enthusiasts.
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Nov 26, 2025
"Hamnet" strips away the legend of Shakespeare to reveal the raw, human grief that may have fueled his greatest work, a story where love and loss become inseparable, and how art is born from heartbreak.
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Dec 5, 2025
As explained in the opening graphic, Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable names in Shakespeare’s time. Paul Mescal plays the Bard early in his career (which is almost never discussed), but it’s Jessie Buckley, as his wife, who center’s the film and firmly establishes her place as one of her generation’s finest actors. Their marriage is tested after the death of their young son, Hamnet, which culminates in the production of the famous play at the Globe Theatre (the film’s most powerful and touching sequence). Buckley runs the range of emotions and her skill at showing new insights into emotions is inspiring. Mescal if full of intensity and the young actors who play Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) and Hamlet (Noah Jupe) not only prove exceptionally moving, but happen to be brothers in real life. Director Chloé Zhao has staged many of the scenes in wide shots, feeling more like a play without the expected closeups. Her gentle direction still exposes the rawness of pain, esp. in Buckley’s case. Also with Zhao, expect a somber pace and this film does take its time. While it does get a bit wearying with it’s slow scenarios, it ultimately proves an intimate and moving mediation on love and grief.
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Nov 27, 2025
William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language, though there’s some disagreement about whether he actually wrote the materials attributed to him. Even sketchier than this are some of the details about his personal life, aspects of his character that have been the subject of much conjecture, especially where they may have influenced his literary undertakings. And an examination of that nexus is where this latest offering from writer-director Chloé Zhao makes its appearance on the stage (or, in this case, the screen). Based on the best-selling speculative novel Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell (who co-wrote the screenplay with Zhao), the film presents a fictional take on how the Bard’s most noteworthy work, the quintessential theatrical tragedy, Hamlet, came into being. Essentially, the narrative maintains that the stage play (which, in Shakespeare’s time, used the names “Hamlet” and “Hamnet” interchangeably) came about as a grief/coping response after the author (Paul Mescal) and his wife, Agnes (Jessie Buckley), lost their young son, Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), to “the pestilence” (assumed to be bubonic plague). It’s presumed that the tragic but heroic Hamlet is a fictional homage to Shakespeare’s courageous, honorable but ill-fated real life progeny (though, admittedly, it’s something of a stretch to understand what connection an 11-year-old boy from rural England might have to a prince of the Danish royal family). Bringing the play to life often led to marital discord between Will and Agnes, given that he was working on the production in London while she maintained the family household in Stratford-on-Avon. And, all the while, the couple struggled to come to terms with their feelings of loss, something that Shakespeare hoped to resolve by creating this latest work. As noble as this sentiment might be (and as truly effectively as it’s addressed in the picture’s closing 15 minutes), the overall execution otherwise leaves much to be desired. To its credit, “Hamnet” features superb performances (particularly by Buckley and Noah Jupe as Hamlet, though Mescal comes across as a bit hammy at times), along with a fine score, stunning visuals and an excellent period piece production design. But, even with all these assets in its favor, this release is sorely in need of editing and a better script, one with fewer repetitious and incongruent elements (most notably the clumsy integration of original Shakespearean on-stage dialog with contemporary off-stage exchanges). These shortcomings, regrettably, make for an often-dull tale, one that prompted a number of viewers at the screening I attended to start nodding off – literally. What’s more, the screenplay would appear to assume that most audience members have an intimate familiarity with both the minutiae of the play and the details of Shakespeare’s biography, inferences that ask an awful lot of viewers upon entering the theater. Indeed, when all is said and done, “Hamnet” truly is a major disappointment, an unapologetic example of Oscar bait, a picture that holds itself in bloated esteem simply because of its lofty attributes and subject matter. But that kind of unrepentant cinematic preening has grown tiresome over time, even though it’s a formula that this filmmaker never shies away from employing in her productions – and this offering, unfortunately, is once again no exception.
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Production Company
- Focus Features
- Hera Pictures
- Neal Street Productions
- Amblin Entertainment
- Book of Shadows
Release Date Nov 26, 2025
Duration 2 h 5 m
Rating PG-13
Awards
Astra Film Awards
• 6 Nominations
Astra Creative Arts Awards
• 4 Nominations
Mill Valley Film Festival
• 2 Wins & 2 Nominations
