‘Hamnet’ Review – Chloé Zhao and Jessie Buckley Craft a New Cathartic Masterpiece

Following her 2021 Best Picture winner Nomadland and her MCU blockbuster Eternals, Hamnet (2025) serves as a reminder of filmmaker Chloé Zhao’s signature, empathetic touch. Based on the award-winning novel of the same name by Maggie O’Farrell, the movie follows the family of the great English playwright, William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), in late 16th-century England as they contend with the death of their 11-year-old son Hamnet. With a special focus on his wife, Anne Hathaway, here referred to as Agnes (Jessie Buckley), Zhao’s film adaptation highlights the fierceness of her love for her family in the face of hardship, as well as how her husband transmutes his grief into art.

An Incredibly Lush and Atmospheric Adaptation

Hamnet is a transcendental feat of filmmaking, boasting an atmosphere so tangible that the audience is completely submerged. Whereas the source material hints at the tragedy looming on the horizon, and its link to the creation of Shakespeare’s play Hamlet, writer-director Chloé Zhao keeps the narrative fully rooted in the present — the moss-coated, gnarled forest and the floral-speckled, verdant fields of the English countryside. The color grading may not be saturated, but it is vibrant, thanks to cinematographer Łukasz Żal (The Zone of Interest, I’m Thinking of Ending Things).

Not only is each shot of Hamnet artfully composed, but Zhao also invites viewers to absorb the negative space of a scene. Films often put all of their focus into the substance of a story, what is written in the plot summary. In Hamnet, we are sometimes left to drift; scenes pull on long, giving ample opportunity to sit with the characters. The camera lingers on quiet moments where we are challenged to do nothing more than be present. In another movie, it might feel trite or mundane. However, Zhao’s inclusions allow spectators to immerse themselves in a larger whole, to be invited into the most intimate of moments — the time we have alone with ourselves.

Jessie Buckley Conveys the Complex Shades of Motherhood

Jessie Buckley (The Bride!, Women Talking) beautifully portrays the unconventional Agnes Shakespeare — the black sheep of her family, a woman who doesn’t quite fit in with others’ expectations. Guided by her own compass, Agnes claims a life for herself with William and guides it where she feels it would best be served. Buckley is tremendous, crafting a perfectly nuanced take on motherhood. Agnes embodies both the softness that comes with the vulnerability of completely loving a child and the strong, protective spirit prepared to bend the world to her will if anything threatens him.

Try as a mother might, there are some things she simply cannot protect against. Agnes is fated to lose her son, the young Hamnet played by 12-year-old child actor Jacobi Jupe (Peter Pan & Wendy, Apple TV’s Before). Despite his age, Jupe delivers a commanding performance that many actors can only dream of. He accomplishes so much with so little, at one instance embodying the easygoing joy of a child and the next, all the complicated feelings that accompany a looming death: fear, guilt, and sadness, simultaneously. Jupe brings to life a Hamnet that is far too easy to fall in love with, and inevitable to mourn.

Chloé Zhao Unlocks Deep Emotional Catharsis

Hamnet is a film designed to make you cry. This is not the work of manipulation, or some cheap ploy to coax a tear, but the result of a genuinely crafted story. It’s the sort of emotional reaction that can only be achieved by totally submerging moviegoers in the world of the story, by sharing the joys, difficulties, and all the imperfect facets of the human condition. Tears are not evoked by sad stories; they are evoked by stories that resonate, by stories that touch some tender part of us, placing pressure on that delicate point until we beg for release.  

The latter half of Hamnet sits tight in the chest. It’s not that the film’s events are uniquely horrible. Reading a Wikipedia plot summary would not have the same effect. Hamnet succeeds as a vehicle for such powerful resonance because of the empathetic foundation of the first half, our participation in the life that the Shakespeare family had already built. It’s undeniably sad when a child dies. However, it’s something else altogether to experience a mother’s grief by proxy.

Hamnet is One of the Best Movies of 2025

The last scene of Hamnet acts as the grand culmination of all that came before it. In the book, so much of it takes place internally in the narration that it’s difficult to imagine how effective it would be on screen. Yet, Zhao and original author Maggie O’Farrell, who co-wrote the script together, nail this finale. Jessie Buckley, as always, conveys every complicated emotion with phenomenal skill. Even as she may yell and grow angry, it never feels out of place, only understandable. This is also where Paul Mescal (Gladiator II, Aftersun) is at his best as William Shakespeare.

Throughout the movie, Mescal plays an understated role, often absent due to his work at the Globe Theatre in London. But in his final moments, the curtain is pulled back on Shakespeare as a character. The bard is no longer able to hide his grief behind his art, and Mescal bleeds forth all his vulnerabilities. Thus, O’Farrell’s novel transforms into a gorgeously crafted cinematic masterpiece. Very few films of any generation can touch an audience so deeply, to build a world so wholly realized and artfully grounded. This is one of them.

Yes, at the end, there are tears. Viewers are not left with despair, though. They are left with something far more indeterminate and personal. Do not watch Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet to experience sadness; watch it to process life.

Hamnet hits select theaters on November 26 and expands nationwide on December 12!

Release Date: November 26, 2025.
Directed by Chloé Zhao.
Screenplay by Chloé Zhao & Maggie O’Farrell.
Based on Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell.
Produced by Steven Spielberg, Sam Mendes, Liza Marshall, Pippa Harris, & Nicolas Gonda.
Executive Producers: Chloé Zhao, Laurie Borg, & Kristie Macosko Krieger.
Main Cast: Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn, Jacobi Jupe, David Wilmot, Olivia Lynes, Bodhi Rae Breathnach, Freya Hannan-Mills, Dainton Anderson, Elliot Baxter, Noah Jupe, El Simons, Louisa Harland, Jack Shalloo, Sam Woolf, & Hera Gibson.
Cinematographer: Łukasz Żal.
Composer: Max Richter.
Editors: Chloé Zhao & Affonso Gonçalves.
Production Companies: Hera Pictures, Neal Street Productions, Book of Shadows, & Amblin Entertainment.
Distributor: Focus Features.
Runtime: 125 minutes.
Rated PG-13.