The people have spoken–Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet has won the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) People’s Choice Award, voted on by festival attendees. 

This makes Zhao the first filmmaker to win the Award twice, having previously won for Nomadland, which would go on to win Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards. 

The TIFF People’s Choice Award is a significant bellwether for potential Oscar Award contenders. Since 2012, every winner has gone on to receive a Best Picture nomination, with 12 Years a Slave (2013) and Green Book (2018) winning the Oscar. Last year’s The Life of Chuck was delayed until this year, so it was not eligible for the 2025 Oscars.

The runner-ups were Frankenstein and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. Both of these titles are distributed by Netflix, which has a full plate of award contenders that include Jay Kelly, A House of Dynamite, and Train Dreams. Since 2012, out of the twenty-six total runner-ups recognized, thirteen overall films have gone on to receive a Best Picture nomination; Argo (2012), Spotlight (2015), Parasite (2019), and Anora (2025) have won. 

Hamnet premiered at the Telluride Film Festival to rapturous reviews and acclaim. The film stars Paul Mescal and Jessie Buckley as Agnes and William Shakespeare, detailing the loss of their son, Hamnet, leading up to the creation of Hamlet. It is a fictionalized account, based on Maggie O’Farrell’s award-winning novel. Farrel co-wrote the screenplay alongside Zhao. 

This win continues to solidify Zhao’s meditation on love and loss as a top-tier, bona fide Awards contender that can garner wins across the board and pose a challenge for Best Picture.

In the newly created category for the International People’s Choice Award, Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice won, with Sentimental Value and Homebound as the following runner-ups. Choice is coming from its highly acclaimed reception at the Venice Film Festival, where it failed to win any competition prizes. This win helps solidify it as a contender for the ever-expanding international Academy that has yet to recognize Park’s films. Neon is distributing Choice, Value, as well as the Palme d’Or winner, It Was Just an Accident, which also played at TIFF. 

The full list of winners is below.

TIFF People’s Choice Award: 

Winner: Hamnet

First runner-up: Frankenstein

Second runner-up: Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery

TIFF People’s Choice International Award: 

Winner: No Other Choice

First runner-up: Sentimental Value

Second runner-up: Homebound

TIFF People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award: 

Winner: Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie

First runner-up: Obsession 2025 

Second runner-up: The Furious

TIFF People’s Choice Documentary Award: 

Winner: The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue

First runner-up: EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert

Second runner-up: You Had to Be There: How the Toronto Godspell Ignited the Comedy Revolution…

Article Courtesy of Amritpal Rai

Feature Image Credit to Focus Features