Chloé Zhao’s adaptation of Hamnet has won this year’s people’s choice award at the Toronto film festival.
The acclaimed drama, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel, stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal and tells a fictionalised account of William Shakespeare and wife Agnes as they grieve for their young son.
The award has come to suggest future Oscar success with every recipient from 2011 to 2023 scoring either a best picture nomination or a win. Last year’s winner was Stephen King adaptation The Life of Chuck, starring Tom Hiddleston. The film later struggled at the box office upon release this summer. In a review for Vanity Fair, Richard Lawson called it a “disappointment” and added: “I don’t imagine a best picture nomination is in the offing.”
Hamnet premiered at the Telluride film festival to positive reviews and will be released later this year. It marks Zhao’s second people’s choice award after Nomadland in 2020.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and Rian Johnson’s whodunnit sequel Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery were named runners up.
For the first time, the festival introduced an international people’s choice award which was won by Park Chan-wook’s darkly comedic thriller No Other Choice.
Controversial documentary The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue won the people’s choice award for documentary. The film, which tells the story of an Israeli general and the fallout from 7 October 2023, led to protests in the city and had been briefly removed from the schedule for “important safety, legal and programming concerns” before it was re-added. In a mixed review for the Hollywood Reporter, Daniel Fienberg called it “undeniably gripping” but “oversimplified” with some “disingenuous film-making choices”.
The Toronto winners come after Jim Jarmusch’s family comedy Father Mother Sister Brother picked up the top award at the Venice film festival. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Adam Driver and Charlotte Rampling.