Pawn Sacrifice
In a gripping true story set during the height of the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer finds himself caught between two superpowers when he challenges the Soviet Empire and its greatest player, Boris Spassky, for the 1972 World Chess Championship.
10 August 1966, New York City, New York, USA
1971, Stavropol, USSR
29 June 1982, New York, New York, USA
25 May 1952
28 July 1929, Southampton, New York, USA
April 17, 1894 in Kalinovka, Dmitriyev Uyezd, Kursk Governorate, Russian Empire [now Khomutovka Raion, Kursk Oblast, Russia]
18 June 1942, Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK
29 December 1998, New York City, New York, USA
August 29, 2016
There's no better metaphor for the film's plot than this sport. [Full review in Spanish]May 24, 2016
[Zwick] makes the historic matches come to life, such that even non-players will appreciate the gripping excitement and intellectual rigour to be found in the battle of wits that is chess.September 24, 2015
Archived news reports and a Dick Cavett interview fit seamlessly into the dramatic recreations, as do era-specific rock tunes.April 16, 2016
Its desire to tell a small part of a historical firebrand's story is undermined by its reluctance - or inability - to get inside his mind.September 24, 2015
Genius is fascinating, particularly when it is complicated, as it always seems to be.September 25, 2015
Fine-looking but safe ...September 23, 2015
Features a showboat performance from Tobey Maguire as the increasingly disturbed Fischer, along with a more composed one from Liev Schreiber as the taciturn Spassky.September 24, 2015
Despite his best emoting, Maguire ultimately comes across as Peter Parker with a mole and a bad haircut.August 12, 2016
A film that works because of the great performances by the two leads. [Full review in Spanish]October 14, 2015
Like all of Zwick's works, it's perfectly watchable fare, but it's often infuriating for its refusal to dig deeper into its incredibly compelling subject.May 03, 2016
'Pawn Sacrifice' takes all of those tropes and cranks them up to 11, far past the barometers of either believable human behavior or credible filmmaking.