Hamnet review: Shakespeare, grief and you’ll need towels

A house in Stratford, a boy called Hamnet

The facts are thin, which is why O’Farrell’s 2020 novel worked so well. William Shakespeare and his wife had three children: Susanna, then the twins Hamnet and Judith. Hamnet died in 1596, aged 11. A few years later, his father wrote Hamlet. Back then the two names were used interchangeably, and the film tells you so at the start.

Zhao tells the story mostly from the mother’s side. Here she’s called Agnes rather than Anne Hathaway, and she’s a woman more at home in the woods than in the parlour, with a falcon on her arm and a reputation for being a witch’s daughter. She meets a young Latin tutor with ink on his fingers. A pregnancy forces a wedding, and soon Will is going back and forth to London to make his name while Agnes brings up the children in Warwickshire. Then the plague comes to Henley Street while he’s away. That’s as far as I’ll go.

Buckley, Mescal and the woman behind Nomadland

Jessie Buckley plays Agnes and Paul Mescal plays Will, with Emily Watson and Joe Alwyn among the supporting cast. Jacobi Jupe plays Hamnet, and his brother Noah Jupe is also in the cast. Zhao directed (she won the Oscar for Nomadland), O’Farrell co-wrote the screenplay, and Steven Spielberg is one of the producers. It runs 125 minutes and is rated 12A.

Make no mistake, this is Buckley’s film. The camera barely leaves her face, and she goes from wild delight to the kind of howling grief that makes you look at your shoes. Mescal has the harder job, playing a man who’s often absent, and he’s quietly very good as someone who can only say what he feels by writing it down.

Hamlet is a play about a son who loses his father. Hamnet asks what happens when a father loses his son, and finds that he can only cope by writing it into a play.

Why it hits harder after fifty

I first read Hamlet at school, when it was mainly about getting through the soliloquies before double maths. In your twenties it’s a play about a moody young man. By your fifties you’ve probably buried a parent, maybe worse, and you start to notice the old men, the ghosts and how unfinished everything feels. Hamnet makes that turn on purpose. It’s about a father who wasn’t there, who threw himself into work, and who had no words for any of it until he wrote them. Plenty of men my age will find that uncomfortably familiar.

It’s not flawless. The first hour is gorgeous but slow, with long stretches of forest light and mud, and one birth scene goes on long enough to need an interval. Now and then you can almost hear the film wanting awards. But the last stretch, which I won’t spoil, is as good as anything I’ve seen in a cinema in years.

What the critics said

Reviews have been mostly glowing. Time Out gave it five stars, with Phil de Semlyen warning that tissues won’t be enough: “You’ll need towels.” Rolling Stone called it “the most shattering movie of 2025”, and Little White Lies said Buckley’s performance cements her status as one of the great screen actors of the century. The Guardian was more cautious. Richard Lawson called it “a stately, occasionally lugubrious drama” and said it sometimes has the hum of prestige awards-bait, but he also said its closing minutes were among the most poignant in recent memory. I think that’s about right.

Where to watch it, and where to go next

Hamnet opened in UK cinemas on 9 January 2026 and is now streaming in the UK on Sky and NOW.

If it gets to you, Stratford-upon-Avon is a good next step. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust looks after the house on Henley Street where Shakespeare was born, along with Anne Hathaway’s Cottage in Shottery, Mary Arden’s Farm and the site of New Place, the home he bought later on. The Royal Shakespeare Company is just down the road by the river, and in London there’s Shakespeare’s Globe on Bankside. Check both for what’s on. I’d say Hamlet itself is worth seeing again after watching this, especially if you haven’t seen it since school.

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Verdict

Hamnet is beautiful, sometimes slow and occasionally too pleased with itself, but Jessie Buckley is extraordinary and the ending is devastating. It’s for anyone who has lost someone, anyone who has been the parent who wasn’t there, and anyone who only knows Hamlet from school. Watch it alone and keep a towel handy.

Sources

• IMDb – Hamnet (2025) film page
• Focus Features – Official Hamnet website
• Time Out – Hamnet review by Phil de Semlyen
• The Guardian – Hamnet review by Richard Lawson (syndicated)
• Rolling Stone – Hamnet review
• Little White Lies – Hamnet review

Hamnet – 2025 – Sky, NOW – Cast includes:
Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, Joe Alwyn
Images from TMDB. Streaming data from JustWatch.