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While Oscar season is always unpredictable, there are a few things you can always bank on about Telluride: the weather will change every 15 minutes, even the biggest A-list stars will stroll the streets casually \u2014 and one film will emerge as the festival favorite.<\/p>\n
While Telluride may not officially hand out prizes, this year that crown went to Hamnet,<\/em> Chlo\u00e9 Zhao<\/strong>‘s transcendent drama that imagines the love story of William<\/strong> Shakespeare<\/strong> and his wife, Agnes Hathaway<\/strong> (Paul Mescal<\/strong> and Jessie Buckley<\/strong>) \u2014 and how they cope with the death of their son, Hamnet<\/strong> (Jacobi Jupe<\/strong>). It was the talk of every gondola ride, passholder line, and coffee queue, with audiences and critics alike praising Zhao’s adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell<\/strong>‘s best-selling novel (the two collaborated on the screenplay) \u2014 and singling out Buckley<\/strong>‘s heartrending performance. While the emotional film left altitude-challenged festgoers even more dehydrated with free-flowing tears, they were near-unanimous in their across-the-board praise for what’s now well-positioned as an Oscar frontrunner for Focus Features and a perfect 100 percent Rotten Tomatoes score.<\/p>\n More from Gold Derby<\/strong><\/p>\n 2026 Oscar Nominations Predictions<\/p>\n There are several other festival darlings, of course \u2014 Joachim Trier<\/strong>‘s Sentimental Value<\/em>, which earned the Grand Prix prize at Cannes and is Norway’s entry for International Feature \u2014 was also a high point of the weekend. Stellan Skarsg\u00e5rd<\/strong> is considered a lock for a Best Supporting Actor nomination for a career-best performance as the estranged father and struggling director whose return into his daughters’ lives upends them all. Renate Reinsve<\/strong> will prove a worthy rival to Buckley in the Best Actress category as Nora, the elder daughter and actress who’s resisting starring in the film her father has written for her.<\/p>\n