Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet has won the highly sought-after People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, a victory that significantly boosts its prospects for the upcoming Academy Awards, per variety.com. The win makes Zhao the first director in the award’s 47-year history to win the prize twice, following her 2020 win for Nomadland, which went on to claim the Oscar for Best Picture.
The TIFF Audience Award has a strong track record as an Oscars barometer. Since the Academy expanded the Best Picture field in 2009, 22 of the award’s winners have gone on to be nominated for Best Picture, with seven ultimately winning the top prize. Only one winner, 2011’s “Where Do We Go Now?,” failed to secure a Best Picture nomination.
Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein and Rian Johnson’s Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery were named first and second runners-up, respectively. Other winners included Barry Avrich’s documentary The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue and Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice, which won the International People’s Choice Award.
