Hamnet (2025)

Jessie Buckley won the Best Actress Oscar as Agnes, the emotional and mystical wife of Will Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) in this wonderful movie. Everyone calls it a tear jerker, but you must know by now that I will not tell you what will jerk the tears because I hate spoilers. Terrific support comes from Emily Watson as Will's mother, Bodhi Rae Breathnach as Agnes and Will's firstborn Susanna, and Jacobi Jupe and Olivia Lynes as their twins Hamnet and Judith. At the very end we will see Noah Jupe, Jacobi's older brother, playing an actor in a play within the movie.

Chloé Zhao directs from the screenplay she wrote with Maggie O'Farrell, adapted from O'Farrell's 2020 historical fiction novel. A card at the opening states that the names Hamnet and Hamlet were interchangeable in Shakespeare's time. Max Richter's moody score is currently setting my mood on Apple Music

The movie's 96 wins and 302 other nominations included Oscar nods for Best Picture, Zhao for directing, Zhao and O'Farrell for the adapted screenplay, Richter for the music, Fiona Crombie for production design, Malgosia Turzanska for costume design, and Nina Gold for casting.

Although he didn't win anything for this picture, cinematographer Lukasz Zal's work is evocative and did get 21 non-Oscar nominations.

There's a lot of interesting trivia but read it afterwards if you want to avoid spoilers. I will tell you that a very moving part of the final scene was actually improvised.

Buckley was last blogged for Women Talking, Mescal for All of Us Strangers, Watson for The Theory of Everything, Noah Jupe for Honey Boy, Zhao for Nomadland, Richter for Never Look Away, and Zal for Zone of Interest. Breathnach has another movie coming out this year. Jacobi Jupe was 12 when this was shot and it's his second feature, with three TV series under his belt (his brother was 20 at production time), and Lynes makes her feature debut with this one.

Rotten Tomatoes critics and audiences aren't playing, with averages of 87 and 93% respectively. We rented it on February 5 and now you can stream it on Peacock with a subscription.