Hamnet
Directed by Chloé ZhaoAfter losing their son Hamnet to plague, Agnes and William Shakespeare grapple with grief in 16th-century England. A healer, Agnes must find strength to care for her surviving children while processing her devastating loss.
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Hamnet Ratings & Reviews
- LivewireAdminDecember 8, 2025I think the only reason I was able to reasonably hold it together through this is because the person next to me in the theater was absolutely sobbing and essentially crying for the both of us. I say reasonably, I still had a few tears running down the side of my face. Amazing performances, specifically Jessie Buckley and Jacobi Jupe. I now feel the urge to consume a bunch of Shakespeare's work. I feel like understanding more of his plays will allow me to pick up on more things in this, it's the type of movie that feels incredibly layered. Shit, this actually has me considering a re-watch of Eternals
- Evan May1d ago“Hamnet” is a strong illustration of our need for stories to understand and feel our experiences. So well done technically. Score and sound design fill every scene with a sense of presence. Jessie Buckley has a thousand faces, each of them true.
- Hairon_p.hFebruary 5, 2026I love movies that make me cry from sadness and happiness.
- rlindsley1d agoIt was ok, but soooooo sloooooowww.
- Krista GloverFebruary 27, 2026I am absolutely broken after watching Hamnet. 😭 I had no idea Shakespeare had a son, Hamnet, who died at only 11 years old. The film shows how Hamlet wasn't just a play it was William’s way of saying goodbye to his son because he was away working when his son actually passed. By playing the Ghost himself in the play, Shakespeare metaphorically 'died' on stage so his son could be the one who stayed alive as Shakespeare wished had been the case in real life. Naming the play and the main character Hamlet was also his way of making sure that his son would continue to live on as long as it was performed on stage. This film deserves every Oscar. Prepare to cry your eyes out
- Audrey Layman4d agothis is the last time I watch Paul Mescal play a sad dad
- rg9400February 4, 2026I bawled. Grief is such a hard thing to capture and convey in a movie. It's doubly hard when the viewer expects it. I think it's no secret what this movie is about, and a lot of viewers will go into it expecting that moment. For it to work despite those expectations is very impressive. Chloe Zhao's signature bucolic scenery is omnipresent throughout this movie, and there's this dusting of magical realism that gives the movie an almost ethereal feel. However, the real driving force of this movie is Jessie Buckley. Don't get me wrong, Paul Mescal is great as well. However, it is Buckley that is the living, beating heart of this movie, and all Zhao has to do is zoom into her face, and the rest just works. There is a scene where all she is doing is raising her hand to grasp someone, and it broke me. That scene is right up there with some of the best scenes I've seen this year, period. This is a movie about grief, and how we can process and experience it in different ways. I think Zhao and Buckley really capture that theme so poignantly in this movie. I do have one criticism though. The first third of this movie is very slow, and it feels overlong since it's mostly a prologue to the main theme of the movie. I was honestly worried about how I would feel about the movie during this section. Editing it down would have made the movie leaner without losing anything in my opinion. Regardless, this movie hit me hard, so I have to rank it as one of the best movies of the year. I hope Buckley gets her much deserved flowers.
- Kevin WardDecember 18, 2025Good Grief. This didn't hit as hard as I was expecting, but still that Jessie Buckley primal wail nearly wrecked me.
- Rowan Krzysiak4d agoIt's hard for me to be objective. This was genuinely my worst nightmare in every way. It is absolutely terrible but saying that, you might like it.
- HakihikoFebruary 5, 2026Graceful, Intimate, and Deeply Powerful "Hamnet" is an extraordinary film: delicate, emotionally devastating, and crafted with remarkable elegance. It's the kind of movie that speaks softly yet leaves a profound impact, lingering long after it ends. The performances are simply outstanding. Every emotion feels lived-in and authentic, carried with restraint and depth rather than excess. The cast delivers something rare: performances that feel intimate and universal at the same time, grounding the film's grief and love in something painfully real. Direction is confident and sensitive, allowing the story to unfold at its own pace without ever feeling slow. The film trusts silence, gestures, and small moments, and that trust pays off beautifully. The cinematography is stunning, with fantastic shots that feel almost painterly, while never losing their emotional purpose. The music is splendid, subtle, evocative, and perfectly placed. It enhances the emotional weight without ever manipulating it, blending seamlessly with the visuals and performances to create a deeply immersive experience. "Hamnet" is a film of rare emotional intelligence and artistic control. It's moving, elegant, and quietly devastating; a true cinematic achievement. Easily one of the best movies of 2025.
- jackmeatMarch 4, 2026My quick rating - 7.7/10. I realized March 15th is coming soon, and I would like to get all the Best Picture nominees in so I can make more educated picks for the Oscar Contest. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet opens with a title card explaining that in Elizabethan England, “Hamnet” and “Hamlet” were interchangeable due to the era’s creative relationship with spelling. It’s a small detail and not just historical trivia. It’s part of the backbone of the film. After her eleven-year-old son dies during the plague, Agnes Shakespeare (Jessie Buckley) is shattered. Her husband William (Paul Mescal) mourns too, but in a very different way. She is the wound exposed. He is the scar forming quietly underneath clothing. All of this takes place in the unforgiving landscape of 16th-century England. The film follows Agnes, a healer who can mend others but not herself. She attempts to navigate grief while still being a wife and mother to her surviving children. Let’s get this out of the way. You already know this story is going to hurt. The plague doesn’t exactly scream “feel-good matinee.” But what makes Hamnet devastating isn’t just the tragedy, it’s how convincingly it’s performed. The acting here is on another level. Buckley delivers a performance that feels less like acting and more like a mental excavation. When that moment of realization hits her during the stage performance of Hamlet, the entire range of emotion she cycles through is staggering. It’s raw, unfiltered grief. Agnes doesn’t romanticize her pain. She wears it like armor made of broken glass. Mescal plays Will as a man who buries his sorrow so deep it comes back out as poetry. Their dynamic is painfully believable. One partner imploding, the other transmuting loss into language. You can practically see the creative gears turning behind his eyes while hers remain flooded. The supporting cast is equally strong. Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Susanna, the eldest child, brings a quiet resilience to her scenes. I had just seen her in Shelter, and she continues to impress. Noah Jupe, playing the stage version of Hamlet, again had my full attention, as he did in The Carpenter’s Son. The theater sequence with Agnes in the audience is one of the film’s most powerful moments. Grief meeting art in real time. I thought Hamnet was visually stunning. Cinematographer Łukasz Żal deserves major credit for creating an atmosphere that feels authentically lived-in rather than museum-polished. There’s mud, candlelight, and damp air. You can almost smell the 1500s (which, I'd be willing to bet, wasn’t pleasant). If there’s a drawback, it’s the pacing. The film moves deliberately, sometimes very deliberately. It slows down to force you to sit in the grief, to feel its corrosive weight. There’s no swelling musical cue to soften the blow. Sadness here isn’t poetic. It’s damaging and relentless, without a cure in sight. Go figure. A movie about the Shakespeare family delivers some of the best acting of the year. Don’t be surprised if you don’t make it through dry-eyed. It may not be my Best Picture pick (I’ve still got two contenders left to watch), but in terms of performances? This one’s setting the bar uncomfortably high.
- samotsamaFebruary 3, 2026Amazing performances
- Mancubus995d agoOver rated in my opinion. This was boring from start to finish. It took us 2 attempts to finish it and we only gave it a second try because of the Oscar nomination. We were left scratching our heads as to why, and then we saw that Stephen Spielberg was a producer. That, and it must have been a slow year, because this was not what I would consider Oscar worthy.
- makdelartFebruary 19, 2026I generally avoid tearjerkers because these films are usually charlatanism. It's easiest to make a film about a dying child or a mother who has cancer, and everyone around them cries, sad music plays, and “what a beautiful film.” Here, we do have a fragment of Shakespeare's biography, so the story is not entirely fictional (which would somehow justify the events shown), but it has been filtered through the prism of a contemporary novel by Maggie O'Farrell. In addition, Max Richter's heart-wrenching music is a typical element of charlatanism here. On the plus side, I definitely count the spectacular photography in natural lighting, the set design, the costumes, and Jessie Buckley's acting.
- UniqueMovies Deb HFebruary 9, 2026😢 Absolutely Heart-Wrenching! Outstanding acting 🌹🕊️ most definitely a must see and worth the watch 😢🕊️😢🌹🕊️🌹🕊️
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Hamnet Trivia
Hamnet was released on December 4, 2025.
Hamnet was directed by Chloé Zhao.
Hamnet has a runtime of 2h 6m.
Hamnet was produced by Liza Marshall, Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, Steven Spielberg, Nicolas Gonda.
After losing their son Hamnet to plague, Agnes and William Shakespeare grapple with grief in 16th-century England. A healer, Agnes must find strength to care for her surviving children while processing her devastating loss.
The key characters in Hamnet are Agnes (Jessie Buckley), Will (Paul Mescal), Mary (Emily Watson).
Hamnet is rated PG-13.
Hamnet is a Biography, Drama, History film.
Hamnet has an audience rating of 9.2 out of 10.
Hamnet had a budget of $35M.
Hamnet has made $93.4M at the box office.