Chess movies and TV shows

The list contains the best, new and most relevant chess movies ordered by relevance. The recommendation service has sorted out realistic, serious, captivating, psychological, suspenseful and suspense films and TV shows about / with chess, rivalry, ambition, contests and competitions, prodigy, genius, obsession, youth, teenager and school plots mostly in Drama, Thriller and Sport genres shot in USA, France, UK and other countries.
chess
 778
chess movies
TOP 10 movies tagged as chess: The Queen's Gambit (2020), Pawn Sacrifice (2014), Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), The World Champion (2021), Queen of Katwe (2016), Critical Thinking (2020), The Luzhin Defence (2000), Knight Moves (1992), The Tournament (2015), Uncovered (1994).

List of chess movies

Watch Trailers From This List to Choose a Movie
The Queen's Gambit (2020)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 397 min.
TV show
Story: In a Kentucky orphanage in the 1950s, a young girl discovers an astonishing talent for chess while struggling with addiction.
Style: captivating, psychological, period piece, historical drama, suspense ...
Plot: chess, addiction, genius, female protagonist, competition, child prodigy, prodigy, champion, coming of age, girl, girl power, adoptive mother ...
Time: 60s, 50s, 1950s, 2020s, 20th century
Place: europe, usa, kentucky, las vegas, mexico city ...
Is relevant ?
 7.0
 49K
Pawn Sacrifice (2014)
Genre: Biography, Drama, History, Sport, Thriller
Country: USA
Duration: 115 min.
Story: American chess champion Bobby Fischer prepares for a legendary match-up against Russian Boris Spassky.
Style: realistic, factual, inspirational, captivating, suspenseful ...
Plot: chess, cold war, biopic, mental illness, genius, alone in the world, obsession, eccentricity, politics, contests and competitions, rivalry, doctor ...
Time: 70s, 1950s, 20th century, 60s, year 1951 ...
Place: new york, israel, brooklyn new york city, former yugoslavia, canada ...
Is relevant ?
Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)
Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport
Country: USA
Duration: 109 min.
Story: A prepubescent chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.
Style: inspirational, uplifting, touching, feel good, intelligent ...
Audience: family outing, kids, teen drama
Plot: chess, child prodigy, prodigy, mentor, genius, tournament, children, teacher, competition, coming of age, childhood, obsession ...
Time: year 1993, 90s, 20th century
Place: usa, new york
Is relevant ?
The World Champion (2021)
Genre: Drama, History, Sport
Country: Russia
Duration: 145 min.
Story: 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 ...
Style: tense, psychological, unusual plot structure, contemplative, suspenseful ...
Plot: chess, genius, child prodigy, rivalry, tournament, championship, ambition, champion, competition, heroes, snake, betrayal ...
Time: year 1978
Place: russia
Is relevant ?
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 7.4
 19K
Queen of Katwe (2016)
Genre: Biography, Drama, Sport
Country: USA
Duration: 124 min.
Story: A young girl overcomes her disadvantaged upbringing in the slums of Uganda to become a Chess master.
Style: inspirational, thought provoking, sincere, captivating, disturbing ...
Audience: teens, kids, family outing, family friendly
Plot: chess, poverty, child protagonist, widow, rise to the top, small town, biopic, mother daughter relationship, contests and competitions, team, african american, black history ...
Time: year 2016
Place: africa, uganda, indiana
Is relevant ?
Critical Thinking (2020)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 117 min.
Story: Based on a true story from 1998, five Latino and Black teenagers from the toughest underserved ghetto in Miami fight their way into the National Chess Championship under the guidance of their unconventional but inspirational teacher.
Style: motivational, thought provoking, contemplative, psychological, captivating ...
Plot: chess, social problems, high school, life is a bitch, society, hardcase students, human relationship, dedicated educator, teacher, city, new teacher, contest ...
Place: miami
Is relevant ?
The Luzhin Defence (2000)
Genre: Drama, Romance
Country: UK, France
Duration: 109 min.
Story: Based upon the novel by Vladimir Nabokov, a chess grandmaster travels to Italy in the 1920s to play in a tournament and falls in love.
Style: atmospheric, melancholic, intellectual, bad ending, sincere ...
Plot: chess, asperger's syndrome, obsession, prodigy, genius, relationships, eccentricity, loneliness, love story, mentally unstable, supportive spouse, contests and competitions ...
Time: 1920s, 20th century
Place: italy
Is relevant ?
 6.1
 9K
Knight Moves (1992)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: USA, Germany, Canada
Duration: 116 min.
Story: A psychologist falls for a world-class chess player suspected of odd murders linked to his game.
Style: tense, suspenseful, psychological, scary, suspense ...
Plot: chess, serial killer, investigation, murder, police investigation, sex scene, revenge, serial murder, police, protagonist as suspect, psychopath, haunted by the past ...
Time: 90s, year 1992
Is relevant ?
 5.7
 496
The Tournament (2015)
Genre: Drama, Sport
Country: France
Duration: 83 min.
Story: Budapest International Chess Tournament. The most likely winner: Cal Fournier (22), French champion, immature genius, socially awkward, compulsive player. But this time, an unusual 9-years-old Hungarian opponent disrupts this smooth-running routine.
Style: captivating, serious, realistic, sincere
Audience: teens
Plot: chess, youth, genius, prodigy, competition, ambition, rivalry, misfit, contests and competitions, bet, coach, professional rivalry ...
Time: 21st century
Place: hungary, budapest
Is relevant ?
 5.7
 3K
Uncovered (1994)
Genre: Mystery, Thriller
Country: UK, Spain, France
Duration: 103 min.
Story: While restoring a fifteenth-century painting Julia reveals a hidden Latin phrase. A series of murders begin to rock her small world of art experts, patrons and restorers, and she finds that the mystery of the painting is interwoven with the mystery ...
Style: serious, psychological, suspenseful, tense, atmospheric ...
Plot: chess, investigation, murder, inheritance, uncover truth, mind game, danger, race against time, dishonesty, amateur detective, law enforcement, prostitute ...
Time: medieval times, year 1993, middle ages
Place: barcelona
Is relevant ?
 7.5
 14K
Fresh (1994)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: USA, France
Duration: 114 min.
Story: Michael is a 12-year-old drug pusher who lives in a crowded house with his cousins and aunt. His father has become a street bum,but still meets with Fresh on occasion to play chess. Fresh is rather quiet in a crazy world. Fresh's sister is a ...
Style: hood, realistic, bleak, suspenseful, disturbing ...
Audience: teens
Plot: chess, coming of age, african american, ghetto, drug dealing, drug, hip hop, drug lord, drug addiction, father son relationship, black, adolescence ...
Time: 90s, year 1994
Place: new york, brooklyn new york city, usa
Is relevant ?
The Dark Horse (2014)
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: New Zealand
Duration: 124 min.
Story: One-time Maori speed-chess champ, Genesis Potini, lives with a bi-polar disorder and must overcome prejudice and violence in the battle to save his struggling chess club, his family and ultimately, himself.
Style: realistic, serious, captivating, emotional, depressing ...
Plot: chess, mental illness, compassion, friendship, uncle nephew relationship, underdog, brother brother relationship, boy, hopes, dedicated educator, contests and competitions, teenager ...
Time: 20th century, year 2016, future
Place: new zealand, oceania
Is relevant ?
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Life of a King (2013)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 100 min.
Story: Life of a King is the true story of one man's mission to give inner city kids of Washington DC something he never had - a future. After being incarcerated for eighteen years, Eugene Brown established the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the ...
Style: sincere, uplifting, rough, touching, captivating ...
Audience: teens
Plot: chess, dedicated educator, hardcase students, changing lives, ambition, teenage life, ex convict, contests and competitions, bad attitude, society, gain trust, teachers and students ...
Time: 21st century
Place: cuba, washington d.c., usa
Is relevant ?
Queen to Play (2009)
Genre: Drama
Country: France, Germany
Duration: 97 min.
Story: In a small Corsican village, the life of Hélène, ordinary and single, She works as a maid in a hotel and is married happily with her Husband Ange and her fifteen year-old daughter. Her modest and monotonous life seems to be predetermined... One ...
Style: realistic, semi serious, touching, humorous, feel good
Plot: chess, midlife crisis, family relations, island, couples, self discovery, follow your dream, hopes, dull life, parents and children, unfulfillment, couple relations ...
Time: year 2009, 21st century
Place: france, europe, corsica
Is relevant ?
Dangerous Moves (1984)
Genre: Drama, Sport, Thriller
Country: France, Liechtenstein, Switzerland
Duration: 110 min.
Story: World Chess Champion Akiva Liebskind (Michel Piccoli) faces his former pupil Pavius Fromm (Alexandre Arbatt), who defected to the West from the Soviet Union five years earlier, for the World Chess Championship in Geneva, Switzerland. The tension and ...
Style: suspenseful, realistic, serious, psychological, captivating ...
Plot: chess, prodigy, politics, rivalry, state affairs, contests and competitions, moral dilemma, kgb, cold war, communism, champion, mathematician ...
Time: 80s
Place: ussr, switzerland, lithuania, geneva switzerland, israel ...
Is relevant ?
Knights of the South Bronx (2005)
Genre: Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 89 min.
Story: A business man decides that he wants to teach school in the inner city and chooses a tough school in the South Bronx. He teaches the children how to play the game of chess, and along the way they learn a lot about life.
Style: uplifting, touching, realistic, serious, spiritual
Audience: family outing
Plot: chess, teacher, misfit, youth, against the odds, hardcase students, lifestyle, ambition, juvenile delinquency, life is a bitch, hopes, human spirit ...
Time: 21st century
Place: new york, bronx new york city
Is relevant ?
 7.5
 4K
Endgame (2011)
Genre: Crime, Drama
Country: Canada
Duration: 60 min.
TV show
Story: Endgame is a Canadian drama television series that premiered on the Showcase Television network on Monday, March 14, 2011. The series is developed and produced by Thunderbird Films. The series follows former World Chess Champion Arkady Balagan, a ...
Style: detective, serious, suspenseful, realistic, exciting ...
Plot: chess, investigation, talented, fear, prodigy, law enforcement, hotel, eccentricity, murder mystery, maid, mental illness, hotshot ...
Time: future, 21st century
Place: russia, vancouver
Is relevant ?
Le collectionneur des cerveaux (1976)
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Country: France
Duration: 93 min.
Story: A young pianist is shocked when she witnesses a strange chess tournament with a robot. Could there be a gruesome secret behind this exhibition?
Style: horror musical, weird
Plot: chess, robot, musician, piano, brain, androids, friend, sleuth, pianist, widow, saving a life, investigation ...
Is relevant ?
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 6.1
 464
Hatley High (2003)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Country: Canada
Duration: 90 min.
Story: The Canadian teen comedy Hatley High sends up high school sports rituals by placing a most unlikely competitive game at the center of its story: that of chess. Tommy (Nicholas Wright) is a new arrival in his parents' hometown of Hatley, whose ...
Style: semi serious, humorous, captivating, light, realistic ...
Plot: chess, cheerleader, teenage love, rivalry, love and romance, teenage life, ambition, small town life, school, wizards and magicians, teenager, high school ...
Time: 21st century
Is relevant ?
 6.9
 2K
Grandmaster (2012)
Genre: Action, Thriller
Country: India
Duration: 100 min.
Story: Chandrashekhar lives alone in a dark and violent city. Even with crime occurring all around him, he withdraws from all responsibility and lives quietly. Soon, change is forced upon him in order to catch a serial killer. Like a grandmaster who ...
Style: rough, serious, suspenseful, suspense, suspense thriller ...
Plot: serial killer, investigation, chess, police detective, law enforcement, rivalry, police, murder, danger, police officer, genius, whodunit ...
Time: 21st century
Place: asia, india
Is relevant ?
Return from the Ashes (1965)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Country: UK, USA
Duration: 104 min.
Story: A Jewish woman, Dr. Michele Wolf, interred in a Nazi concentration camp during WWII returns to her Paris home after the war's end. She's unaware that her husband, the handsome gigolo and chess master Stanislaw Pilgrin, has been having an ...
Style: noir, psychological, serious, realistic, suspenseful ...
Plot: chess, murder, female nudity, world war two, murder by drowning, murder of a nude woman, drowning, man kills a woman, death by drowning, dead woman, wedding, child in peril ...
Time: 60s, year 1945, 1940s
Place: poland, paris france, france, europe
Is relevant ?
The Chess Players (1977)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, History
Country: India
Duration: 129 min.
Story: It is the year 1856. Nawab Wajid Ali Shah is the king of Awadh, one of the last independent kingdoms of India. The British colonialists, intent on controlling this rich land, have sent general Outram on a secret mission to clear the way for an ...
Style: relaxing, parallel cinema, art film, insightful, realistic ...
Plot: chess, colonialism, politics, medieval, indian history, hardcore, foreign legion, revolutionary war, legion, struggle, rebel, revolutionary ...
Time: 19th century, year 1977, 1850s, victorian era
Place: britain, india, asia
Is relevant ?
The Coldest Game (2019)
Genre: History, Sport, Thriller
Country: Poland, USA
Duration: 102 min.
Story: During 1962's Cuban missile crisis, a troubled math genius finds himself drafted to play in a U.S.-Soviet chess match -- and a deadly game of espionage.
Style: political, suspense, clever, realistic, inspirational ...
Plot: cold war, chess, spy, contests and competitions, competition, espionage, politics, cia, fear, international crisis, state affairs, mission ...
Time: 60s, 20th century
Place: warsaw poland, soviet union, usa
Is relevant ?
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 6.2
 771
A Little Game (2014)
Genre: Adventure, Family
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min.
Story: Ostracized at her posh new uptown school and shaken by the death of her beloved grandmother, a 10 year-old downtown girl finds an unlikely mentor in the form of an irascible chess-master, who uses the game to teach Max lessons in resilience, ...
Style: entertaining, captivating
Audience: family outing, kids
Plot: chess, girl, high school friend, children, friendship, schoolgirl, lifestyle, child protagonist, teenage girl, child, teenage life, friends ...
Is relevant ?
 7.1
 20K
64 Squares (2016)
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Country: India
Duration: 103 min.
Story: 'Wazir' is a tale of two unlikely friends, a wheelchair-bound chess grandmaster and a brave ATS officer. Brought together by grief and a strange twist of fate, the two men decide to help each other win the biggest games of their lives. But ...
Style: suspense, tense, suspenseful, captivating, psychological thriller ...
Plot: chess, murder, friendship, race against time, police, father daughter relationship, revenge, twists and turns, murder mystery, conspiracy, shootout, interrogation ...
Place: kashmir
Is relevant ?
 6.8
 2K
Fahim (2019)
Genre: Biography, Comedy, Drama
Country: France
Duration: 107 min.
Story: Fahim Mohammad, a Bangladeshi immigrant, becomes a world junior chess champion in France.
Style: disturbing, feel good, clever, captivating, humorous ...
Audience: family outing
Plot: chess, social problems, life is a bitch, follow your dream, stranded, against the odds, prodigy, talented, biopic, boy genius, young heroes, coping
Is relevant ?
The Mighty Pawns (1987)
Genre: Drama, Family, Sport
Country: USA
Duration: 57 min.
Story: Inner city kids are given new direction when they are convinced to join the school chess team.
Style: learning
Plot: chess, education, teacher student relationship, junior high school, dedicated teacher, high school life, assault, teenage angst, urban setting, theft, power, boss ...
Time: 80s
Is relevant ?
Computer Chess (2013)
Genre: Comedy
Country: USA
Duration: 92 min.
Story: Set over the course of a weekend tournament for chess software programmers thirty-some years ago, COMPUTER CHESS transports viewers to a nostalgic moment when the contest between technology and the human spirit seemed a little more up for grabs. We ...
Style: surreal, humorous, melancholic, atmospheric, mumblecore ...
Plot: chess, obsession, man versus machine, nerd, ambition, computer genius, artificial intelligence, rivalry, contests and competitions, computer system, computer, hacking ...
Time: 80s, 20th century
Place: pentagon
Is relevant ?
 5.4
 375
Endgame (2015)
Genre: Biography, Drama
Country: USA
Duration: 90 min.
Story: Since he was 5 yrs old, Jose's abuelita taught him to play chess like his grandfather who was a champion in Mexico. Now as part of the Brownsville school team, Jose has the chance to use his skills and for once in his life, finds himself in the ...
Style: semi autobiographical, captivating, disturbing, psychological
Plot: chess, school, schoolboy, teenage life, rivalry, ambition, school club, direction and purpose, teenager, contest, biopic, broken family
Place: texas
Is relevant ?
 6.1
 852
Son of Cain (2013)
Genre: Thriller
Country: Spain
Duration: 90 min.
Story: Nico Albert is a very peculiar character teenager, with exceptional intelligence and a single obsession: chess. His parents, concerned about the anomalous attitude of his son, child psychologist hired Julio Beltran. Through therapy and common hobby ...
Style: psychological, suspenseful, serious, realistic, suspense ...
Plot: chess, emotional manipulation, mentally unstable, parents and children, family relations, murder, psychologist, teenager, danger, dishonesty, mind game, teenage life ...
Time: 21st century
Place: spain
Is relevant ?
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