Brought up to date by the TV series Le Jeu de la Dame, the game of chess has since been on the rise. However, it has been present in the cinema for a long time, as you will be able to see with this nine-part quiz.
On October 23, 2020, a series was launched on the Netflix platform that was to experience such phenomenal and unexpected success: Le Jeu de la Dame. Actress Anya Taylor-Joy plays Elisabeth Harmon, a very young girl during the first episode, who is already developing exceptional skills for the game of chess.
The following episodes describe her apprenticeship, and her fierce desire to become the greatest player in the world in an America of the 50s and 60s not quite ready to see a woman compete with the grandmasters. The young heroine will also have to fight against her addictions to alcohol and drugs to reach the top.
The series will be crowned with numerous awards, including two prestigious awards at the Golden Globes: Best Mini-Series and Best Actress. If this worldwide success was able to breathe new life into this ancestral board game, a few films had already used this subject as their main theme in the past.
In 1984, actors Michel Piccoli and Alexandre Arbatt faced each other in La Diagonale du Fou, in a game reminiscent of the great duels between players Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoï.
In 1991, another French actor, Christophe Lambert, played the lead role in the thriller Face à face, in which the press officer for a chess tournament was mysteriously murdered. And more recently, in 2014, player Bobby Fischer was entitled to his biopic, The Prodigy, with Tobey Maguire in the lead role.
Many other films have been able to offer some chess games to viewers. Here are nine to recognize in this quiz where you’ll need all your focus to not get checked out.