‘Hamnet’ Wins Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award

The People’s Choice Award from the just-wrapped 50th Toronto Film Festival has gone to Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, first runner-up is Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and second runner-up is Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Hamnet hails from Focus Features, while latter two are from Netflix.

Also in the awards revealed Sunday, the newly created International People’s Choice Award went to Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice. The Documentary winner was Barry Avrich’s The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue.

Voted on by audience members since 1978 and often considered a harbinger for the Best Picture Oscar, the People’s Choice Award has been won by such eventual Best Picture Academy Award winners as Nomadland, Green Book, 12 Years a Slave, The King’s Speech, Slumdog Millionaire, American Beauty and Chariots of Fire. Among those that went on to Best Picture nominations include last year’s winner American Fiction as well as The Fabelmans, Belfast, JoJo Rabbit, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Room, La La Land, The Imitation Game, Silver Linings Playbook, Precious, Life Is Beautiful, Places in the Heart and The Big Chill.

Last year’s surprise winner, The Life of Chuck, had no North American distributor in place and was later picked up by Neon and released this summer, making it Oscar eligible this year, just as the modern People’s Choice winner is. So we shall see how the tradition of TIFF and Oscar hold up in this regard. Last year both the first runner-up Emilia Pérez and second runner-up Anora went on to a collective 19 Oscar nominations between them, both nominated for Best Picture, with Anora winning.

Hamnet is a historical drama co-written, co-edited and directed by Zhao, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s 2020 novel. Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal star in the emotionally charged drama that premiered at the Telluride Film Festival and had its international premiere at TIFF. It is considered a major Oscar contender from Focus and Amblin’ Entertainment and represents Zhao’s second People’s Choice Award at TIFF after 2020’s Nomadland, which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar.

The pic is set for a constrained Thanksgiving release November 27 and a wide release starting December 12.

Here is the list of this year’s TIFF award winners:

People’s Choice Award

Hamnet, dir. Chloé Zhao

First runner-up: Frankenstein, dir. Guillermo del Toro

Second runner-up: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, dir. Rian Johnson

International People’s Choice 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 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

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

Short Cuts Award for Best International Short Film

Talk Me, dir. Joecar Hanna | Spain/USA

Honourable Mention: Agapito, dirs. Arvin Belarmino & Kyla Danelle Romero | Philippines

Short Cuts Award for Best Canadian Short Film

The Girl Who Cried Pearls, dirs. Chris Lavis & Maciek Szczerbowski | Canada  

Honourable Mention: A Soft Touch, dir. Heather Young

Short Cuts Award for Best Animated Short Film

To the Woods, dir. Agnès Patron | France

FIPRESCI Prize: Forastera, dir. Lucía Aleñar Iglesias | Spain/Italy/Sweden

NETPAC Award

In Search of The Sky (Vimukt), dir. Jitank Singh Gurjar | India

Best Canadian Discovery Award

Blue Heron, dir. Sophy Romvari | Canada

Honourable Mention: 100 Sunset, dir. Kunsang Kyirong | Canada

Best Canadian Feature Film Award

Uiksaringitara (Wrong Husband), dir. Zacharias Kunuk | Canada

Honourable Mention: There Are No Words, dir. Min Sook Lee | Canada

Platform Award

To The Victory!, dir. Valentyn Vasyanovych | Ukraine/Lithuania

Honourable Mention: Hen, dir. György Pálfi | Germany/Greece/Hungary