By John Corrado
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet is one of the big Oscar contenders this year, and the film is now available on physical media, including 4K Ultra HD. I praised this one when I saw it at TIFF (you can read my full review right here), and named it one of the best movies of 2025.
Jessie Buckley stars as Agnes, the wife of William Shakespeare (played by Paul Mescal), with the film exploring how their son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe, in a remarkable performance from the child actor) inspired his most famous play Hamlet.
This is Buckley’s show, with her delivering a devastating performance that puts us through the emotional wringer. Coming off her wins at SAG, BAFTA, and the Golden Globes, she is all but guaranteed to win the Oscar for Best Actress next. It’s hard to overstate how powerful she is here, drawing deserved praise for her performance.
In addition to the performances, Zhao’s highly empathetic direction, Łukasz Żal’s gorgeous cinematography, and the meticulous production design all add up to a captivating viewing experience. The 4K disc allows us to appreciate all the rich details in the sets and costumes, and the film’s use of natural light.
Film Rating: ★★★★ (out of 4)
Bonus Features (4K Ultra HD):
The 4K disc includes three featurettes and a commentary track. A regular Blu-ray is also included in the package, which ships with a standard slipcover.
• Family is Forever (7 minutes, 27 seconds): The cast talks about finding their characters and creating an onscreen family, including working with the child actors.
• Cultivating Creativity (4 minutes, 35 seconds): Zhao talks about her approach to adapting Maggie O’Farrell’s book, her “dance takes” to help the actors release excess emotion. She says something profound about trying to capture that fine line between grief and joy, and we feel this emotion come through in her direction.
• Recreating the Tudor Period (10 minutes, 10 seconds): Looks at how the crew made the Shakespearian time period come alive onscreen through the production design, costumes, cinematography, and set decoration, right down to every little detail on the walls. It’s striking work all around, including recreating the Globe Theatre, and this featurette gives us a taste of the amount of craft work and attention to detail that went into the film.
• Feature Commentary With Director Chloé Zhao
The Joy of Movies 