Hamnet
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One Battle After Another Wins Big, Sinners Makes History at the 2026 Oscars
It only took 10 movies, but Paul Thomas Anderson is now, finally, an Oscar winner—a three-time winner in one night no less, with One Battle After Another picking up a total of six Academy Awards including best picture, director, supporting actor, adapted screenplay, editing, and casting. Anderson accepted the top prize with producer Sara Murphy. In his speech, Anderson invoked the five best picture nominees from 50 years ago: Barry Lyndon, Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. “There is no best among them,” said Anderson. “There is just what that mood might be that […]
by Tyler Coates on Mar 15, 2026 -
For Once, the Oscars Are Unpredictable
As we come to the end of a long awards season—the Oscars are, miraculously, less than two weeks away, and final voting closes this Thursday—it’s remarkable that the race feels as up-in-the-air as it did many months ago, before the contenders began screening for pundits and voters. The sure-things have now become the maybes; there’s only one performer whose acting trophy is a sure thing. I take pride in my ability to predict the winners at the Academy Awards. It’s a dubious skill I’ve been honing ever since I won my local video store’s Oscar pool back in high school. […]
by Tyler Coates on Mar 3, 2026 -
How a Controversial BAFTA Broadcast Scrambled the Oscar Race
The Academy Awards are still three weeks away, but this is a vital week for the contenders. We’re approaching the end of campaigning, with the final Oscar voting opening on Feb. 26 and closing March 5. In between those dates are two key precursors: the Producer’s Guild Awards on Feb. 28 and the Actor Awards (formerly the SAG Awards) on March 1. Both events have strong—though not infallible—track records of foretelling the eventual Oscar winners. If Sunday’s BAFTAs ceremony proved anything, it’s that surprises and upsets can still happen. I’m not talking about the controversy that overshadowed the ceremony when […]
by Tyler Coates on Feb 24, 2026 -
The Indie Spirits Flip the Oscar Script
In a big studio-backed awards season, it’s rare to see much overlap between the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the Oscars. A west coast cousin of sorts to the Gotham Awards, the Indie Spirits often celebrate the movies that the Academy skipped over with its nominations. The ceremony itself is also more fun (there’s some day-drinking involved) than the more staid guild awards that dot the homestretch ahead of the similarly serious Academy Awards. Having said that, the Indie Spirits still matter quite a bit to campaign strategists and the people who employ them. They take place in the heart […]
by Tyler Coates on Feb 17, 2026 -
How Politics Affects the Oscars, and Vice Versa
It’s only been five days since the Oscar nominations announcement, and campaigning for Phase 2 hasn’t kicked into gear quite yet. There have been a lot of other things to focus on: the final Park City Sundance Film Festival, where many 2027 Oscar contenders may debut (six features from last year’s festival earned Oscar noms this year, including best picture nominee Train Dreams); a massive snow storm blanketing half of the country from the Midwest to the East Coast; and the ongoing horror in Minneapolis that gets unbearably worse every day. It feels a little trite, to me at least, to […]
by Tyler Coates on Jan 27, 2026 -
DP Lukasz Zal on “Hamnet”
A tutor and a free spirit fall in love in sixteenth-century Stratford, but then Will (Paul Mescal) leaves Agnes (Jesse Buckley) for London while she raises their three children. Tragedy threatens to split them apart until Agnes sees her husband’s latest play, Hamlet. Based on the best-selling novel by Maggie O’Farrell, Hamnet has been earning praise since it screened at Telluride in August. Chloé Zhao’s direction, and performances by leads Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, have drawn particular attention. But Hamnet has a distinctive atmosphere that sets it apart from many of this year’s releases. That look and feel is […]
by Daniel Eagan on Dec 18, 2025 -
Music as Nourishment: Max Richter on Scoring “Hamnet”
With Songs My Brother Taught Me (2015) and The Rider (2017), Chloé Zhao constructed tender epics out of prolonged time spent at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Much like her Oscar-winning Nomadland (2020), these films are born out of geography, setting characters yearning for freedom and belonging against vast American landscapes.. Zhao’s fifth feature, Hamnet, likewise finds a synthesis between the natural world and the interiority of her characters in telling a story of creation in every sense of the word — the genesis of new life and the mysterious place within where creativity and artistic processes emerge. […]
by Hugo Emmerzael on Dec 2, 2025
