Hamnet

2025 ranked This film made me realize I actually don’t know English at all. Hamnet is a film in its own category that outweighs others in the drama category, this is nothing but a straight tragedy. Just to get it out of the way, I don’t understand how people didn’t realize this was Shakespeare, like he was literally writing Romeo and Juliet in the beginning, he’s a playwright living in Stratford that works in London, and his name is Will, like come on. Onto the actual film, this has some of the best acting of the year. I was originally on the Rose Byrne train for best actress, but Jessie Buckley was a step above the rest last year, 1 million percent deserves the praise she gets for this role, that guttural scream she lets out when Hamnet dies is actually unbelievable. I’m very upset that Paul Mescal was not nominated for supporting actor, all of the nominees were phenomenal don’t get me wrong, but there’s definitely a place for him somewhere in there like instead of Elordi or Lindo, he was my favorite character of the film, especially in that final 40 minutes with him moving to London. The Jupe brothers absolutely killed it, Noah was very solid as Hamlet and as one of my favorite actors, I love him in pretty much everything he’s in. But oh man, Jacobi was unbelievable. His performance as Hamnet is probably my favorite performance from a child ever, his talent as an actor for his age is crazy, the death swap scene is actually a list level acting, and he’s doing that at 10-11 years old, that’s ridiculous. This was probably my favorite ending of the year, getting to see Agnes realize that her husband immortalized her son and that people understand exactly what she felt earlier was cinema at its finest, and I’m not afraid to mention that tears were shed during this part, such a perfect ending. Overall, I really enjoyed Hamnet, this is definitely up there with the best films of the year for me,  but unfortunately it just about didn’t live up to my expectations, as I was expecting a 5 star perfect film, but nonetheless this film is still absolutely incredible and deserves all the love in the world. 92/100