Movies about chess

Orphaned at the tender age of nine, prodigious introvert Beth Harmon discovers and masters the game of chess in 1960s USA. But child stardom comes at a price.

The death of his fiancee has left chess master Arkady Balagan agoraphobic and unwilling to step outside of his hotel. This debilitation, however, doesn't stop him from solving difficult crimes.

In 1856, two obsessed noblemen ignore everything while playing chess and fail to notice British rule extending into their Indian province.

A knight returning to Sweden after the Crusades seeks answers about life, death, and the existence of God as he plays chess against the Grim Reaper during the Black Plague.

In 1938 Austria shortly after the Nazi occupation, a prominent Viennese intellectual, Werner von Basil, is arrested for smuggling art treatures out of the country and imprisoned by the Gestapo in a hotel room without any mental sustence of any kind to break him down to make him talk while a young ballerina, named Irene Adreny whom is the lover of the SS officer Berger playing mind games on von Basil, tries to intervene and help the poor intellectual keep his mind intact.

Two worlds collide when an eccentric genius falls in love with a strong-willed society beauty.

A prepubescent chess prodigy is encouraged to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.

A woman finds a hidden message in a restored painting questioning a knight's death. When her friend is murdered investigating it, a chess game's moves in the painting link to killings from the past that she must solve.

Tracy was an innocent, in love and pregnant by the son of a wealthy family. She is sent to prison for a crime she did not commit. When she gets out, she proposes to take revenge on the people who framed her.

During a chess tournament, grand master Peter is suspected of murdering Debi after sex. He helps the police as the murders continue.

A psychic and a cop track a serial killer who is copying a killer who just got executed.

A chambermaid on Corsica is obsessed with chess after seeing a US expat play it lovingly with l'Américaine. She cleans his house and now also plays with him on Tuesdays.

A young mute woman, living in a small village, is expecting a baby. Her husband is at the same time writing a novel and using the villagers as his characters. In the creative process, reality and imagination are constantly intertwined.

During the Cold War, the World Chess Championship clashed complete opposites - personal and political.

Brussels in the year 1568, as the Flemish people are fighting against the tyranny of the Spanish occupiers. Led by Count de Rysoor, the revolt against the ruthless Duke of Alba, is meant to help Prince William of Orange to get into the city and come to power. Now, the count's lieutenant, has an affair with Elisabeth, Rysoor's wife. For the time being, the count, who thinks of his homeland first, turns a blind eye. But such a relationship might well undermine the whole rebellion movement...

With an international chess tournament in progress, a young man becomes completely obsessed with the game. His fiancée has no interest in it, and becomes frustrated and depressed by his neglect of her, but wherever she goes she finds that she cannot escape chess. On the brink of giving up, she meets the world champion, Capablanca himself, with interesting results.

Chess Grandmaster Sergei Khlebnikov is a highly talented and unusual person, living in the 1970s Soviet Union. His is obsessed with making a beautiful game. But his emotional and irrational way is the reason why he never won a major competition. At last his moment comes and he wins the Tournament of Contenders for the World Championship. Next he has to play against the World Champion...

In the center of the story is the fate of the fourth world chess champion Aleksandr Alyokhin in one of the most tragic periods of his life: from 1927 to 1946, that is, from winning the champion title to death. A great chess player, completely fearless at the chessboard and ready to play against any opponent, in real life turns out to be too indecisive and fights with himself, his own fears, prejudices and environmental pressure with varying degrees of success.

A scientist who swore off playing chess after a nervous breakdown as a boy wunderkind, creates an undefeated chess program. But the Russian world champ beats Tommy Rosemund's masterwork in a televised match. So the West German mathematician becomes a top chess pro himself, which the West German media boast will prove the superiority of Germany and democracy. The jowly, white-faced Rosemund believes that the entire Red Communist bloc is out to stop him from vanquishing their atheist pretty boy, Stefan Koruga, to become the next Bobby Fischer and a symbol that capitalism is preferable to socialism.

A chess columnist ends in prison when one of his columns is mistakenly seen as a subversive attack. From there he invents a game of war and strategy and a cellmate who escapes uses it initiating a real revolution. Gripping story.

In 19th century, a disillusioned priest helps a young boy drifter who's a chess wunderkind to move on up in life and social structures using his talent. Years later, he's a success, but game of life and love has higher stakes than chess.

In 1776, an inventor conceals a Polish nobleman in his chess-playing automaton, a machine whose fame leads it to the court of the Russian empress.

A toymaker in Poland specializes in building lifesize mechanical men. He builds a chess-playing "automaton" to hide a pretty young Polish activist who is being hunted by occupying Russian forces.