‘Hamnet’ wins TIFF’s People’s Choice Award

This image released by Focus Features shows Jessie Buckley, left, and Paul Mescal in a scene from "Hamnet." (Agata Grzybowska/Focus Features via AP)

“Hamnet,” Chloé Zhao’s drama about William Shakespeare’s marriage and the death of their 11-year-old son, won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival on Sunday, putting it on an enviable track to Academy Awards contention.

Winners of the top honor at TIFF have historically almost always gone on to land a best-picture Oscar nomination. That was the case every year since 2012, until the streak was likely snapped last year when “The Life of Chuck” won the award. Mike Flanagan’s Stephen King adaptation wasn’t released until the following June, and isn’t expected to figure into the Oscar race.

“Hamnet,” starring Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as Agnes Shakespeare, has drawn an especially emotional reaction in its screenings at the Telluride Film Festival and at TIFF. The film, adapted from Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel, is about how grief, following the death of their son, Hamnet, may have inspired Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy, “Hamlet.”

The film, which Focus Features will release in theaters Nov. 27, is likely to return Zhao and her two stars to the Academy Awards. Zhao’s 2020 drama “Nomadland” won best picture and best director for Zhao. It, too, won the People’s Choice Award in Toronto.

Festival attendees vote for People’s Choice Award. The runners-up were a pair of Netflix releases: Guillermo del Toro’s “Frankenstein” and Rian Johnson’s ”Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery."

The audience award for international film went to Park Chan-wook’s “No Other Choice.” In the festival’s Midnight Madness section, the audience prize went to Matt Johnson “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie.” The prize in the documentary category was awarded to Barry Avrich’s “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue.”

Jake Coyle, The Associated Press