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| Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes and Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare in Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet Photo: Agata Grzybowska/© 2025 FOCUS FEATURES LLC |
Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet won the People’s Choice Award as Toronto Film Festival drew to a close yesterday. It marks the second time that Zhao, who will now be hotly tipped for Oscar success, has won the award after she took it home for Nomadland in 2020.
The film stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as Shakespeare and his wife Agnes and unfold sin the wake of the loss of their child. The film, which premiered in Telluride, will be released on November 27 in the US and January 9 in the UK.
Park Chan-wook’s satirical thriller No Other Choice, about a man who would kill to get back into the job market, which also premiered in Venice, won the inaugural International People’s Choice Award. It is South Korea's submission for this year's Oscars.
The documentary award went to Barry Avrich’s The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, which faced controversy at this year's festival having been cancelled and then reinstated.
Matt Johnson’s Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie won the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award.
Full winners' list:
People’s Choice Awards
- People’s Choice Award: Hamnet, dir. Chloe Zhao
- First runner-up: Frankenstein, dir. Guillermo del Toro
- Second runner-up: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, dir. Rian Johnson
- People’s Choice International Award: No Other Choice, dir. Park Chan-wook
- First runner-up: Sentimental Value, dir. Joachim Trier
- Second runner-up: Homebound, dir. Neeraj Ghaywan
- People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award: Nirvanna The Band The Show The Movie, dir. Matt Johnson
- First runner-up: Obsession, dir. Curry Barker Second runner-up: The Furious, dir. Kenji Tanigaki
- People’s Choice Documentary Award: The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue, dir. Barry Avrich
- First runner-up: EPiC: Elvis Presley In Concert, dir. Baz Luhrmann
- Second runner-up: You Had To Be There: How The Toronto Godspell Ignited The Comedy Revolution…, dir. Nick Davis
Short Cuts Awards
- Best International Film: Talk Me, dir. Joecar Hanna
- Best Canadian Film: The Girl Who Cried Pearls, dirs. Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski
- Best Animated Short Film: To The Woods (Fr), dir. Agnès Patron
Additional awards
- FIPRESCI Award: Forastera, dir. Lucía Aleñar Iglesias
- NETPAC Award: In Search Of The Sky, dir. Jitank Singh Gurjar
- Best Canadian Discovery Award: Blue Heron, dir. Sophy Romvari , with an Honourable Mention for 100 Sunset, dir. Kunsang Kyirong
- Best Canadian Film Award: Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband), dir. Zacharias Kunuk, with an Honourable Mention for There Are No Words, dir. Min Sook Lee
- Platform Competition Award: To The Victory!, dir. Valentyn Vasyanovych with an Honourable mention for Hen, dir. György Pálfi
