Top chess movies of all time

[Vladimir Drkulec]

One of my favourites was "Revolver" with Jason Statham which is a gangster movie full of aphorisms about life and chess along with some psychological sequences vaguely based on Freud, perhaps Jung and Kabbalah references.

"Life of a King" with Cuba Gooding Jr. doesn't seem to be mentioned on any of the top ten chess movie lists but which I found quite good is about an ex-con who finds redemption in teaching chess to a group of at risk young people in Washington, DC. One of the young players dies while another achieves some kind of redemption through playing chess.

[Kevin Pacey]

Two big movies of all time that I know of don't exactly qualify, but they have notable scenes with actors playing a game of chess. The first is Casablanca, where Humphrey Bogart notably plays the French Defence as Black (perhaps in sympathy with occupied France at the time). The second is the original version of The Thomas Crown Affair where Steve McQueen plays, by a fireplace - before the game can end, it turns into a love scene.

Fwiw, here's a link to a thread on the wiki re: chess in the arts:

http://www.chesscanada.info/forum/showthread.php?5103-Wiki-re-chess-in-the-arts&highlight=wiki