Chloé Zhao's Hamnet won the People's Choice Award at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
The film, which centers on William Shakespeare and his wife's private grief after losing a son, struck a wide emotional chord.
Park Chan-wook's new film Decision, meanwhile, took the newly created International People's Choice Award.
Both wins illuminate what an audience-centered festival can reveal—and where it runs into limits.
What signals does the audience's choice send?
Overview
The audience judges.
TIFF began in 1976 and has grown into North America’s largest film festival. For many, it also serves as an early barometer for awards season.
Unlike juried prizes that reflect a panel’s tastes, the People's Choice Award measures direct audience reaction.
In 2025, Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet won the top People's Choice Award, and Park Chan-wook’s Decision won the new International People's Choice Award.
The audience's vote is a form of cultural power.
Although these two films come from different aesthetic traditions, both confront human choice and loss head on.
TIFF’s voting model foregrounds popular sympathy rather than festival politics, which is notable.
However, this public focus also raises the risk that formally daring or niche work may be sidelined by crowd preferences.
That tension reaches beyond aesthetics into how the film business organizes investment and distribution.
History and meaning
History matters.
TIFF has long been called a launchpad for awards season, and audience favorites at Toronto often attract industry attention afterwards.
The People's Choice Award differs from juried honors because it aggregates reactions from audiences of different nationalities and backgrounds.
As a result, the festival becomes a place to read contemporary tastes and cultural mood.
The new International People's Choice Award separately highlights films from outside the U.S. and Canada.
That change can trigger fresh attention and investment across diverse film ecosystems.
Traditionally, festivals build cultural authority through institutional procedures.
But as audience voting becomes visible, a festival's clout now links closely to public reaction.
That shift affects a film’s market value—its appeal to distributors and investors—and thus has practical consequences beyond prestige.
Therefore, awards at festivals carry social and economic weight, not just symbolic honor.
Voices in favor
Supporters argue this is a democratic move.
Awards chosen by audiences reflect genuine public response rather than the preferences of a small group of gatekeepers.
Proponents say audience-driven festivals strengthen democratic participation in culture.
Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet—Zhao is the Chinese-born director known for Nomadland—garnered legitimacy because its emotional depth and historical frame resonated across age groups and nationalities.
When the public chooses a film, it confirms a shared cultural feeling.
Advocates also note that a separate International People's Choice Award raises visibility for non-English-language films.
Park Chan-wook’s Decision—Park is the South Korean director known for Oldboy—tackled the friction between private choice and social pressure, and that honesty won broad approval.
Such wins boost the international brand of national cinemas, signaling to producers and investors that these films can travel—and sell.
Consequently, audience choices can link to real job creation and greater financial stability in the industry when distribution follows.
Moreover, audience-centered evaluation forces filmmakers to think about how their work communicates.
It rejects the idea that formal experimentation is the only valid artistic path, encouraging a wider range of genres and stories.
That inclusiveness can expand opportunities for new directors and raise overall diversity in the industry.
Ultimately, the argument goes, audience choice reshapes the relationship between cultural producers and consumers in productive ways.
Voices against
Critics disagree.
They warn that audience voting tends to favor popularity over artistic risk.
Unlike expert juries, crowds are often swayed by trends and demographic imbalances, so formally challenging films may lose out.
The new International People's Choice Award lacks fully defined standards, which may lead to fairness concerns.
Opponents also fear festival commercialization.
When awards reflect audience demand, distributors and sponsors can align strategies to chase predictable hits, potentially weakening a festival’s cultural mission.
Over time, that commercial logic could narrow the range of films made, favoring familiar genres or star-driven projects.
Additionally, if the voting pool skews by age, location, or taste, minority voices may be excluded.
There is also a procedural worry: opacity.
If a festival does not disclose how votes are counted, who votes, or how audiences are invited to participate, trust erodes.
Expanding democratic processes does not automatically ensure fairness, so festivals face pressure to combine openness with ethical safeguards.
In-depth analysis
We examine the causes.
The wins for Hamnet and Decision rested largely on narratives audiences could empathize with.
Stories rooted in literature, family loss, or moral tension tend to mobilize broad emotional responses—and that helped both films in the vote.
Empathic storytelling often sways audience votes.
Online reaction was mixed between fans and critics.
Many fans celebrated the international recognition for Korean cinema and praised Park’s craft and themes.
Meanwhile, some critics cautioned that audience selection can miss out on formal daring and experimental depth.
This debate ultimately reflects a larger question about the film’s social role versus its market value.
The economic angle deserves attention.
Festival wins increase interest from overseas distributors and exhibition platforms.
That ups the chance producers recover costs and signals to future financiers that a filmmaker can reach buyers—so awards influence funding decisions for follow-up projects.
Thus festival honors often translate into production jobs and a more secure ecosystem for creative work.
Yet a fixation on commercial payoff can constrain creative freedom.
Festivals must therefore design institutional measures to manage the paradox: celebrate audience favorites while protecting adventurous cinema.
Possible options include clarifying the roles of audience versus jury awards and improving voting transparency.
In the end, sound institutional design matters most.
Social ripple effects and comparison
Comparison helps clarify meaning.
Toronto’s people-driven prizes stand in contrast to older festivals such as Cannes or Venice, which still prize juried distinctions and long-established prestige.
This difference invites varied readings about a festival’s influence and purpose.
An audience’s vote shows how quickly a film can spread socially.
International success for Korean films raises national soft power and cultural visibility.
At the same time, heightened commercial hopes can compress the space for diversity in storytelling.
Therefore, festivals and industry players must keep balance in mind.
The challenge is to sustain both crowd-friendly films and experimental work in the same ecosystem.
TIFF can help by ensuring clear procedures and multiple award categories that respect different kinds of value.
Conclusion
To summarize: TIFF's two audience awards this year expose the meeting point between popular appeal and artistic ambition.
People’s Choice and the new International People's Choice institutionalize public voice, but they also raise questions about transparency and the protection of artistic experimentation.
Key takeaways are these.
First, audience choices carry cultural resonance and industry impact at once.
Second, the new international award raises the profile of non-English films worldwide.
Third, festivals must combine clear rules and ethical standards to maintain balance.
Ultimately, festival awards are more than honors—they have industrial and social consequences.
Toronto’s decisions will influence other festivals and the global distribution market.
As a reader, ask yourself: by what criteria should we evaluate audience choice—emotion, craft, market potential, or something else?
