‘Hamnet’ Teaser Trailer Reveals Chloé Zhao’s Tale of an Untold Love Story with Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal
Focus Features has released the first teaser trailer for the highly anticipated new film from Oscar winner Chloé Zhao, Hamnet, an adaptation of the Maggie O’Farrell novel by the same name.
Hamnet tells the story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet, with Academy Award nominees Jessie Buckley (The Lost Daughter) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun) playing Agnes and Will, respectively, as the trials and tribulations of their married life hits an immovable tragedy.
With scope and grandeur, Zhao recreated the Shakespeare’s Globe theater circa 1600, the stage for the film’s imagined original production of Hamlet.
“For the first two days in the Globe, I was genuinely lost. I felt untethered,” Buckley says in an interview with Vanity Fair. “You’re at the mecca of where Hamlet is born—everything that we’ve gone through was culminating to this point.”
Zhao brings with her a stellar lineup behind the scenes with two-time Oscar-nominated cinematographer Łukasz Żal (Ida, The Zone of Interest) behind the camera, celebrated composer Max Richter on the score, Oscar-nominated production designer Fiona Crumble (The Favourite) and Malgosia Turzanska (The Green Knight) supplying the costume design. Zhao and O’Farrell adapt the novel for the film.
Oscar winners Sam Mendes and Steven Spielberg are on board as producers alongside Pippa Marshall and Liza Marshall, and the film co-stars Joe Alwyn, Emily Watson and newcomer Jacobi Jupe in the titular role.
Hamnet will world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival and then screen at the Toronto International Film Festival next month Focus Features will release the film in select theaters on November 27 on wide on December 12. Here is the trailer.
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Critics Choice Association (CCA), San Francisco Bay Area Film Critics Circle (SFBAFCC) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
- 2026 Cannes Film Festival Winners: Cristian Mingiu’s ‘Fjord’ Takes the Palme, Seventh Win in a Row for NEON - May 23, 2026
- Cannes 2026: Sandra Wollner’s ‘Everytime’ Wins Un Certain Regard Grand Prize - May 22, 2026
- ‘Coward’ Review: Belgian Soldiers Find Love in Lukas Dhont’s Hidden Romance Masterpiece [A] Cannes - May 21, 2026
AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 345: Recapping the 79th Cannes Film Festival and Looking to the Awards Future 
‘The Beloved’ Review: Javier Bardem Makes a Meal Out of Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s Movie-Making Buffet [B] 
‘The Dreamed Adventure’ Review: Valeska Grisebach’s Observant Thriller Examines the Grey Zones of Morality [B+] 
‘Minotaur’ Review: Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Timeless, Domestic Epic is an Unflinching Look at Putin’s Russia [A] Cannes