Hamnet (film)

Hamnet is a 2025 historical drama film co-edited and directed by Chloé Zhao, who co-wrote the screenplay with Maggie O'Farrell, the author of the title novel this film is based on. The film's largely fictional story dramatises the marriage between Anne Hathaway (Agnes Hathaway in the novel and film to avoid confusion with the actress with the same name)^[a] and William Shakespeare, and the impact of the tragic death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet on their relationship, which inspired Shakespeare's play Hamlet.^[5] It stars Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal as Agnes and William, alongside Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn in supporting roles.

Hamnet premiered at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival on 29 August 2025 and received a limited theatrical release by Focus Features in the United States and Canada on 26 November. It received a wide theatrical release on 5 December and is set to be released by Universal Pictures in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2026. The film received critical acclaim, with the performances of Buckley and Mescal receiving particular praise. It was listed among the top ten films of 2025 by the American Film Institute.

A written prologue states that in Stratford, England, "Hamnet" and "Hamlet" were considered the same name.^[6]

A tutor, William Shakespeare, leaves his students after seeing a woman summon a hawk with her falconry glove. At her barn, he finds her name is Agnes; the two share a kiss before she asks him to leave. Rumors persist of Agnes being the daughter of a forest witch. Prior to her death, Agnes' mother taught her herbal lore, which Agnes later uses to heal a cut on William's forehead.

Agnes spends much of her time in the forest, where there is a mysterious cave. William visits, and she asks for a story. He recounts the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice, delighting her. She holds his hand and foretells his future as something great, and also sees herself dying with two children.

The pair consummate their relationship; Agnes becomes pregnant. They marry, though their families discourage the union. Agnes gives birth to Susanna in the woods.

William fights back when his father John beats him for rejecting manual labour. Seeing William's frustration at writing, Agnes realizes he must go to London and the theater community; he leaves her and Susanna in Stratford. William's mother Mary restrains Agnes from going to the woods to give birth. In agony, Agnes has a boy, Hamnet, and a girl, Judith, who appears stillborn, but Agnes revives her.

The twins become close as they grow up. Agnes predicts Hamnet, who wishes to join his father's theater company, will flourish. William, successful, buys the largest house in Stratford. Agnes's hawk dies and is buried in a forest ceremony. Agnes tells them a story about the bird carrying off their wishes in its heart, and Hamnet agrees with her that one can see the bird's spirit in the air.

In London, William sees a puppet show depicting the plague carrying people off to death. In Stratford, Judith contracts the plague, but Hamnet evokes the tale of the deceased bird to encourage her. Later, Hamnet lies beside her, proclaiming he wants to take her place. Judith recovers, but Hamnet sickens; he envisions himself on a stage set behind a scrim, calling for his mother. Agnes is unable to cure Hamnet. William returns home and finds Hamnet lying in repose.

Agnes is angered that William will depart for London, straining their relationship. She discovers she is unable to predict the future anymore. Back in London, by the Thames, William considers suicide, ruefully saying Hamlet's speech, "To be, or not to be".

Agnes' estranged stepmother hands her a print notice announcing the Tragedie of Hamlet's upcoming performance in London. In London, William rehearses Hamlet, frustrated with his actors for not showing passion, and demonstrates how to speak the dialogue vigorously.

Agnes and her brother Bartholomew attend the first performance of Hamlet. She is outraged, thinking that Hamnet's name is being profaned. However, she begins to understand that the play is a tribute to her son. William plays the ghost of Hamlet's father, and a scene with him and Hamlet moves Agnes.

When Hamlet, dying, nears the edge of the stage, Agnes reaches forward to touch the actor's hand, with the audience following suit. She envisions Hamnet on the stage seen earlier as his dying vision, moving from sadness to a smile, then walking into the Globe backstage, disappearing through a hole like her mystical forest cave. Agnes laughs, smiling for the first time since his death.

A stage production of Maggie O'Farrell's novel was announced in November 2022,^[7] with the film rights having been acquired prior to publication by London-based Liza Marshall and her company Hera Pictures, who then partnered with Neal Street Productions.^[8] In April 2023, Chloé Zhao was hired to direct the film, and would write the screenplay alongside O'Farrell.^[9]

In May, Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley entered negotiations to star in the film.^[10] Mescal confirmed in a January 2024 interview that he and Buckley would star.^[11]

Principal photography was originally scheduled to begin in London on 3 June 2024.^[12] Production instead began in Wales on 29 July 2024, and wrapped on 30 September. While most of the film was shot in Herefordshire, England, scenes were also filmed in London at the Charterhouse, which served as the largest London location for the production.^[13][14] Joe Alwyn and Emily Watson were added to the cast in August, and Steven Spielberg joined the film as a producer.^[15] Łukasz Żal was the cinematographer^[16] and Max Richter the film's composer,^[17] whose 2004 track "On the Nature of Daylight" is also used in the film.^[18]

In addition to adapting O'Farrell's book, the film repeatedly quotes from the Old English Nine Herbs Charm, an alliterative spell (galdor) from Anglo-Saxon England. The film quotes from two translations of the text: one from philologist Joseph S. Hopkins and another from Stephen Pollington. Regarding the use of his translation in the film, Hopkins says "It is a great joy to play a role in presenting the Nine Plants Spell to such a large audience in the contemporary period, surely providing the most exposure the spell has received since Anglo-Saxon England".^[19]

Focus Features acquired worldwide rights to Hamnet in August 2024, with its parent company Universal Pictures handling its international distribution; Indian distribution rights were acquired by Reliance Entertainment in December 2025 under a pre-existing output deal with Amblin Entertainment.^[15][20] It had its world premiere at the 52nd Telluride Film Festival on 29 August 2025.^[21] In July 2025, the film was announced as part of the Gala Presentations lineup of the 50th 2025 Toronto International Film Festival,^[22][23] where it won the prestigious People's Choice Award.^[24] It was screened in the non-competitive section 'Grand public' of the 20th Rome Film Festival in October 2025 before its theatrical release,^[25] in the official selection of the 70th Valladolid International Film Festival on 27 October 2025 (for its Spanish premiere),^[26] and closed the 38th Tokyo International Film Festival on 5 November 2025.^[27]

The film received a limited theatrical release in the United States on 26 November 2025, ahead of a wide release one week later on 5 December 2025.^[28] It will later be released in the United Kingdom on 9 January 2026, and in Australia on 15 January.^[29]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 234 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "Breaking hearts and mending them in one fell swoop, Hamnet speculates on the inspiration behind Shakespeare's masterpiece with palpable emotional force thanks to Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal's astonishing performances."^[30] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 83 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[31]

Buckley's performance in particular was widely praised. David Fear of Rolling Stone opined that people "will be talking about Jessie Buckley’s performance for years".^[32] Screen Daily's Tim Grierson thought Mescal's role was similar to his previous work but "the regularly superb Buckley is revelatory as a wild creature who experiences the exhilaration of motherhood as well as the heartbreak of loss."^[33] Johnny Oleksinski at New York Post wrote that "it's Buckley who's giving one of those rare turns that simply beggars belief. She swings back and forth from cast iron to porcelain. The actress is thunderous, playful, grounded and ethereal."^[34] Peter Debruge of Variety declared the film to be "so emotionally raw as to be almost excruciating at times" "featuring a heroic performance from Jessie Buckley".^[35]

Bilge Ebiri of Vulture described Hamnet as "devastating, maybe the most emotionally shattering movie I've seen in years".^[36] Angie Han of The Hollywood Reporter summed the film in the bottom line as "a tremendously acted heartbreaker".^[37] Pete Hammond of Deadline Hollywood wrote that Hamnet, "with its quiet determination to say much about how art is affected by life, is unlike anything else".^[38] David Ehrlich of IndieWire affirms that with Hamnet, "it would be hard to imagine a more fitting tribute to Shakespeare's most widely interpreted play." On the performances, Ehrlich notes that the character of Agnes is not built on tropes but is "anchored by the primordial rawness of Buckley’s astonishing performance." Whereas on Mescal's performance he found it to be "cathartically transcendent, because it at last rewards that search... as Will starts looking for his son in the space between life and death."^[39]

Richard Lawson in The Guardian gave it four stars, calling it a "poignant adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel with a stirring tearjerker ending".^[29] BBC film critics Nicholas Barber and Caryn James deem the movie to be the best of 2025 thanks to its rich and emotionally touching characters, its themes and its imagery.^[40] On the contrary, The Wall Street Journal's Kyle Smith called it a "quintessential Oscar bait (highbrow foundation; maximal crying and emoting) but is dogged by intellectual anachronism."^[41]

• Anne Hathaway – Wife of William Shakespeare (1556–1623)
• Hamlet – Tragedy by William Shakespeare
• List of William Shakespeare screen adaptations
• William Shakespeare – English playwright and poet (1564–1616)

• Official website
• Hamnet at IMDb
• Hamnet at Rotten Tomatoes
• Hamnet at Metacritic