All Four 2025 Hamlet Movies, Ranked

In 2025, it feels as if everyone's in mourning and wracked with indecision about what to do about an evil king. That's one possible explanation for why four different cinematic takes on William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" have spent this fall making their way around the film festival circuit. Each of these movies has its own unique approach to the classic revenge tragedy, some reworking it for different settings (present day corporate intrigue, fantasy alternate realities) and others being more broadly about producing the play itself.

Multiplexes might not be as flooded with "Hamlet" movies as festivals were: As of this writing, two of these films are still awaiting distribution in the United States, and only one is expected to be in wide release by the end of this year. But since most online resources classify movies by their initial premiere date, it makes sense to put together this guide to the four 2025 "Hamlet" movies, ranking them from the biggest disappointment to the one guaranteed to win a ton of awards (and in case you need more Shakespeare movies in your life, here are Looper's rankings of the best film adaptations of William Shakespeare's work).

Mamoru Hosoda's latest anime feature, "Scarlet" (which has a one-week Oscar-qualifying release on December 12 before returning to theaters February 6, 2026), remixes the story of "Hamlet" similarly to, but less successfully than, how his previous film "Belle" reworked "Beauty and the Beast." The Prince of Denmark is now a princess, and where Prince Hamlet wavered on revenge, Princess Scarlet (Mana Ashida) is so driven to destroy her uncle Claudius (Kōji Yakusho) that she continues her quest after death. In the afterlife, however, she meets Hijiri (Masaki Okada), a nurse from present-day Japan who questions the cycle of violence.

Hosoda is attempting to make some big statements with "Scarlet," but he makes them in the shallowest, most repetitive ways possible when he's not undercutting his own messages with plot contrivances. While the 3D animation provides some striking images, it's neither at the cutting edge of CGI nor as consistently beautiful as Hosoda's older, hand-drawn films. Throw in two lousy musical sequences, and "Scarlet" unfortunately is one of the year's biggest disappointments from such a great anime director.

"King Hamlet" (still awaiting release plans, but streaming via the Doc NYC festival through November 30) is a documentary about the Public Theater's 2017 production of "Hamlet," starring Oscar Isaac in the title role. Isaac's wife, Elvira Lind, directed the documentary, which benefits from her loving gaze and candid access ... though anyone who wishes they were Oscar Isaac's wife might find themselves jealous.

A few big things happen in Isaac's life while he's rehearsing for the show: His mother dies, and his first son is born. Like another film on this list, "King Hamlet" explores the power of Shakespeare's writing in addressing grief. Even with these life-changing events going on, the documentary is fairly low-key and relaxed, enjoyable without being particularly gripping. Theater kids and fans closely following the "Moon Knight" star's evolving career are the target audience; for everyone else, it will make for pleasant background viewing but doesn't demand the utmost attention.

The Aneil Karia-directed "Hamlet" (still awaiting release plans) is the most straightforward Shakespeare adaptation to play at the 2025 fall film festivals, but it still makes the text its own. The screenplay by Michael Leslie keeps all the dialogue in the original Shakespearean language but cuts out about half of the play, even cutting several big characters, to focus on just scenes from the perspective of Hamlet (Riz Ahmed). The action has been shifted to present-day London, where Hamlet is heir to an Indian-British family of real estate moguls.

The disjoint between the old-fashioned language and the modernized setting does lead to some awkward moments, especially for a movie aiming for grittiness as opposed to the camp of Baz Luhrmann's "Romeo + Juliet," but it does allow Ahmed to deliver one of the scariest readings ever of the "to be or not to be" monologue. The film is at its best when it tells its story visually, and when it finds ways to play with cultural specificity — the high point on both fronts is the reimagining of the play-within-a-play, "The Murder of Gonzago," into a strikingly tense Hindu wedding dance.

Looper's Audrey Fox gave "Hamnet" (in limited release on November 26 before expanding wide in the following weeks) a perfect 10/10 in her "Hamnet" review after watching the film at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the coveted People's Choice Award. Having now seen Chloé Zhao's adaptation of Maggie O'Farrell's bestselling novel for myself, I can concur with the growing consensus that this is both a great movie and a weapons-grade tearjerker.

"Hamnet" is a work of historical fiction about the family life of William Shakespeare (Paul Mescal), his wife Agnes (Jessie Buckley), and their three children. Agnes, a free spirit seen as a "forest witch," has long had visions of dying surrounded by two children, and her worst fears come true when her son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe) dies of the plague at the age of 10. This painfully real tragedy becomes the inspiration for Shakespeare's masterpiece.

Buckley's performance is perhaps the most moving and powerful we'll see all year. Mescal continues to be perfect at playing sad dads, and the child actors do heartbreakingly beautiful work in incredibly challenging parts to play. Łukasz Żal's cinematography is stunning, and Max Richter's score makes the emotions soar (though his recycling of one brilliant yet overused composition might be slight overkill). By far the best "Hamlet"-related movie of 2025 is also among the best movies of the year, period.