Chloé Zhao's Hamnet Debuts in Theaters November 26, 2025

Chloé Zhao's latest film, Hamnet, arrives in limited theaters on November 26, 2025, offering a poignant exploration of grief and family in the life of William Shakespeare. Starring Jessie Buckley as his wife Agnes and Paul Mescal as the playwright, the adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's 2020 novel centers on the death of the couple's only son, Hamnet, and its emotional toll on their household in late 16th-century England.

The story unfolds in Stratford-upon-Avon, where Shakespeare, then a young Latin tutor, meets and marries Agnes Hathaway in 1582 at age 18, while she is 26 and pregnant with their first child. Historical records confirm the couple had three children: daughter Susanna in 1583, and twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. By 1596, Hamnet died at age 11, a fact documented in parish records from Holy Trinity Church, though the cause remains unknown. Parish documents list his burial on August 11 that year but provide no further details on the illness.

In the film, Zhao reimagines the family's private world, drawing on the sparse historical archive to depict Agnes as a woman connected to nature, skilled in herbal remedies, and deeply involved in the daily life Shakespeare...