Mikhail Tal. From a Far

Rey Ardid: La gran partida

January 2013 •Spanish

Hennessy: Maurice Ashley, the Grandmaster

September 2020 •English

The film follows the rise of the chess player Maurice Ashley, the first black person to attain the title of Grandmaster.

Closing Gambit: 1978 Korchnoi versus Karpov and the Kremlin

October 2018 •English

The story of the 1978 World Chess Championship between the Soviet Communist Party's protege, Anatoly Karpov and the traitor and Soviet defector, Viktor Korchnoi. One of those instances in life where truth is stranger than fiction.

Glory to the Queen

March 2020 •English

Against the backdrop of Cold War, Glory to the Queen reveals stories of four legendary female chess players from Georgia who revolutionized women’s chess across the globe and became Soviet icons of female emancipation.

Bobby Fischer Against the World

June 2011 •English

The first documentary feature to explore the tragic and bizarre life of the late chess master Bobby Fischer.

Brooklyn Castle

October 2012 •English

Brooklyn Castle is a documentary about I.S. 318 – an inner-city school where more than 65 percent of students are from homes with incomes below the federal poverty level – that also happens to have the best, most winning junior high school chess team in the country. (If Albert Einstein, who was rated 1800, were to join the team, he’d only rank fifth best.) Chess has transformed the school from one cited in 2003 as a “school in need of improvement” to one of New York City’s best. But a series of recession-driven public school budget cuts now threaten to undermine those hard-won successes.

Kasparov: Chess Rebel

August 2024 •French

The extraordinary life and career of the Russian chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov, a brilliant and charismatic, but also rebellious, favorite son of the Soviet Union.

Magnus

September 2016 •Norwegian

From a young age Magnus Carlsen had aspirations of becoming a champion chess player. While many players seek out an intensely rigid environment to hone their skills, Magnus’ brilliance shines brightest when surrounded by his loving and supportive family. Through an extensive amount of archival footage and home movies, director Benjamin Ree reveals this young man’s unusual and rapid trajectory to the pinnacle of the chess world. This film allows the audience to not only peek inside this isolated community but also witness the maturation of a modern genius.

Knight Moves

January 1992 •English

A chess grandmaster is in a big tournament, and when his lover is found painted up and the blood drained out of her body he becomes a chief suspect. After he gets a call from the killer urging him to try and figure out the game, he cooperates with police and a psychologist to try and catch the killer, but doubts linger about the grandmaster's innocence as the string of grisly murders continues.

Pawn Sacrifice

September 2015 •English

American chess champion Bobby Fischer prepares for a legendary match-up against Russian Boris Spassky.

The World Champion

December 2021 •Russian

Some sporting victories are about more than just claiming a title. Some of them go down in history. The film follows the most dramatic and legendary showdown in the history of chess – the match between Anatoly Karpov, then world champion, and Viktor Korchnoi, a recent emigrant from the USSR. In this battle between two outstanding chess players, a duel of personalities under immense psychological pressure, the stakes are incomprehensibly high.

Searching for Bobby Fischer

August 1993 •English

A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.

Dabaru

May 2024 •Bengali

Dabaru is a melodramatic tale about a young chess player named Surya who rose from the alleys of North Kolkata to become a grand master.

Once Upon a Spy

September 1980 •English

Computer genius and chess champion Ted Danson is lured into service by secret agent Eleanor Parker and becomes a reluctant hero thanks to a number of exploits with villainous Christopher Lee and his army of lethal blue-eyed blonde women.

Evan's Gambit

January 2019 •English

Two brothers, raised by a chess master, must battle head to head in the world's most competitive chess tournament.

Make Your Move

May 2018 •English

Two chess champions have a secret match to decide once and for all which of them is the better player.

The Endless Summer

June 1966 •English

Bruce Brown's The Endless Summer is one of the first and most influential surf movies of all time. The film documents American surfers Mike Hynson and Robert August as they travel the world during California’s winter (which, back in 1965 was off-season for surfing) in search of the perfect wave and ultimately, an endless summer.

Land Without Bread

December 1933 •Spanish

An exploration —manipulated and staged— of life in Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in Extremadura, Spain, as it was in 1932. Insalubrity, misery and lack of opportunities provoke the emigration of young people and the solitude of those who remain in the desolation of one of the poorest and least developed Spanish regions at that time. (Silent short, voiced in 1937 and 1996.)

Megacities

August 1998 •English

Megacities is a documentary about the slums of five different metropolitan cities.

Railway Station

January 1980 •Polish

Kieslowski’s later film Dworzec (Station, 1980) portrays the atmosphere at Central Station in Warsaw after the rush hour.