London Film Festival 2025 – H Is For Hawk ★★★★

Released: 23 January 2026

Director: Phillipa Lowthorpe 

Starring: Claire Foy, Denise Gough, Lindsay Duncan, Brendan Gleeson  

Helen Macdonald’s H is For Hawk was a smash hit on its publication in 2014, winning a string of awards. Following Helen’s decision to train a Goshawk, named Mabel, following their father’s death. The book has now been turned into a feature with Helen played by Claire Foy and Helen’s father played by Brendan Gleeson. As with the book, we follow Helen as she struggles to adjust to life without her father Alisdair, finding solace in the most unusual and wild of places.  

While plenty of other films have recently tackled loss and grief and on this year’s festival circuit, especially, the connection between Helen and Mabel gives this a unique edge and makes it feel part nature documentary.  

Claire Foy is no stranger to on-screen loss with other films like All of Us Strangers and First Man, proving her range. This is a different kind of role, more insular and reserved. Helen is adrift in the world without the rock that was her father. Quiet moments of Helen stumbling and losing track in both her personal and professional worlds are perfectly captured by Foy, wonderfully encapsulating Helen’s quirks. Gleeson is a humorous, warm presence as Alisdair, easy to see the effect he had on those around him, while Denise Gough brings much-needed humour as Christina, offering an outsider’s perspective on Helen’s newfound “hobby”. 

The visual sequences involving Helen training Mabel both in the wild and in and around Cambridge feel lifted from the page, inviting us to take flight and revel in the beauty of the Hawk as she soars above the cityscapes and chases pheasants and rabbits. Helen may get some looks from locals, but she clearly finds catharsis in this most dangerous of creatures.  

Charlotte Bruus Christensen’s cinematography really makes the natural elements work, as we see Mabel in the wild, offset with some gorgeous visuals of Cambridge. This is wonderfully complemented by Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s luscious score.  

Director Philippa Lowthorpe and writer Emma Donoghue (Room) wonderfully bring Helen Macdonald’s beloved source material to life in a moving, meditative film that captures the joys of nature and our relationship with it and how it can help us process trauma. There are some intelligent shifts and expansions on what’s in the novel, with greater focus on certain events and more interactions between Helen and her late father. In spite of some additions, it retains the spirit and emotion of the book, sure to be a hit on wide release, a distinct look at grief through the lends of a goshawk.