Storyline
American chess champion Bobby Fischer prepares for a legendary match-up against Russian Boris Spassky.
Directors
Cast
Arthur Holden, Arthur Holden, Ilia Volok, André Sogliuzzo, Liev Schreiber, Peter Sarsgaard, Vito DeFilippo, Michael Stuhlbarg, Norman Lehnert, Jonathan Dubsky, Roc LaFortune, Tobey Maguire, Brent Skagford, Joe Cobden, John Maclaren, Vitali Makarov, Conrad Pla, Al Dubois, Al Vandecruys, Lily Rabe, Ellen David, Carlo Mestroni, Carlo Mestroni, Richard Jutras, Alain Goulem, Benoit Priest, Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick, Aiden Lovekamp, Raphael Grosz-Harvey, Robin Weigert, Alexandre Gorchkov, Eugene Nomura, Sophie Nélisse, Andreas Apergis, Maurice Demers, Andrew Peplowski, Nathaly Thibault, Evelyne Brochu, Katie Nolan, Peter Janov, Spiro Malandrakis, Eric Lee Huffman, Brett Watson, Shawn Campbell, Edward Zinoviev, Serge Martineau, Sam Stone, Mark Slacke, Igor Ovadis, Bobo Vian, Yanick Bousquet, Shanmugasunder Chetty, Mohsen El Gharbi, David Pryde, Rosaruby Kagan, Glen Bowser, Zach Fraser, Alexandra Van Loon, Marco Verdoni, Matt Keyes, Edward Yankie, Francois Cote, François Ducharme, Grace Anne, Sigurbjörn Guðmundsson, Natalija Ugrina, Lydia Zadel, Dennis Staroselsky
Trailer
Reviews
75
Pawn Sacrifice certainly whips up a dervish of energy, and as a piece of dramatic entertainment, it's mostly engaging, and features character actors doing very good work.
75
As volcanic as Maguire needs to be, it’s those who react to Fischer most tellingly — Sarsgaard’s priest, and Schreiber’s Spassky — that make Pawn Sacrifice the gripping and entertaining history lesson that it is.
75
Slant Magazine
It's best appreciated as a tragicomic profile of a man whose extraordinary talent was undermined by the farcical political reality in which he was enmeshed.
70
A classically helmed biopic that brings nothing new to the genre, but benefits from handsome craftmanship and solid performances by Tobey Maguire as the Brooklyn boy wonder, and Liev Schreiber as his longtime Russian nemesis, Boris Spassky.
70
Absent the ability to really get the audience’s heads in the game, the film succeeds better at presenting chess as a subtle metaphor for the psychological warfare being waged behind the scenes.
