The 'Hamnet' Trailer Brings a New Twist to Shakespeare's Work

It's been over 400 years since playwright William Shakespeare posthumously broke big in 1623 with the "First Folio," after spending his entire life as a minor homegrown English celebrity. In that time, partly thanks to the British Empire and colonialism, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare have been translated into every primary language found on Earth, except for whale song, and a few alien languages, including Klingon. His plays and sonnets, including the unfinished works and the apocrypha attributed to him without evidence, have been performed on every continent except Antarctica. Yet somehow, 402 years later, we have a brand-new tale arriving this fall, in the big-screen adaptation of Hamnet.

In our age of remakes, reboots, and reimaginings, Shakespeare remains the king of stories we already recognize. One would think there was nothing new to uncover about the Bard in 2025. However, the playwright's own history is rarely told. When Shakespeare appears as a character on screen, it's almost always in a fictionalized form, such as Shakespeare in Love, which presents the Bard as having lived through a series of stories echoing his most familiar works. Hamnet technically falls into that category, purportedly telling the story of how Shakespeare wrote his greatest tragedy, Hamlet (i.e., The One Where Everybody Dies). 

However, do not expect Shakespeare to meet two dopes named Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whose puppet show antics lead to the production of a play. Written by Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet is a psychological portrait of a family who have suffered the traumatic loss of their only son, Hamlette, and connects it to the debut of his greatest tragedy. 

Here's the film's logline:

Hamnet tells the powerful story of love and loss that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.

Jessie Buckley (The Woman in White) stars as Agnes Hathaway, the long-suffering wife and mother of the Bard's children, Agnes; Paul Mescal (Normal People) takes on the role of her famous husband, William. The two co-star alongside Joe Alwyn (The Favourite) as Agnes' brother Bartholomew Hathaway, and Emily Watson (The Third Day) as her mother-in-law Mary Shakespeare. 

The supporting cast of adults includes David Wilmot (Bodkin), Sam Woolf (The Crown), Jack Shalloo (The Tower), and Elliot Baxter (1917). 

The movie also features a subsection of up-and-coming child actors, with Jacobi Jupe (Tom Jones) as the titular Hamnet. The rest of the underaged crew includes Dainton Anderson (Archie), Bodhi Rae Breathnach (The Capture), Smylie Bradwell (The Crow Girl), Freya Hannan-Mills (Inspector Ellis), Faith Delaney (Irish Blood), plus newcomers Olivia Lynes, James Lintern, and Eva and Zac Wishart.

Director Chloe Zhao co-adapted the script with author Maggie O’Farrell. Liza Marshall of Hera Pictures, Pippa Harris, and Sam Mendes executive produced on behalf of Neal Street; Nic Gonda for Book of Shadows, and Jeb Brody, Steven Spielberg, and Mia Maniscalco for Amblin.

Hamnet will receive a two-week limited release in the U.S. beginning on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 27, before expanding nationwide starting Friday, December 12, 2025.