{"id":304757,"date":"2026-07-24T14:21:01","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304757\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T14:21:01","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T14:21:01","slug":"inside-chess-movies-like-critical-thinking-and-queen-of-katwe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/304757\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside chess movies like ‘Critical Thinking’ and ‘Queen of Katwe’"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does the standard issue chess player in the movies look like?<\/p>\n

In the 2020 real-life competition drama \u201cCritical Thinking,\u201d Mr. Martinez (John Leguizamo<\/a>) tells the high school students he coaches that \u201cChess is the great equalizer.\u201d He means that, despite his Black and brown players\u2019 impoverished situation, and the stereotypes people assume about them, they are on equal footing with the poshest white prep school students when they sit down at that chess board. By beating those teams, they would upstage the naysayers who imply they lack the mental capacity for such a strategic game.<\/p>\n

I thought about \u201cCritical Thinking\u201d when I saw the recent Netflix documentary, \u201cQueen of Chess.\u201d That film is about Judit Polg\u00e1r, the Hungarian chess prodigy who became the greatest female player \u2014 and one of the overall best \u2014 in history, winning major championships in the \u201890s and 2000s. Several talking heads in director Rory Kennedy\u2019s feature argue that chess is a man\u2019s game, and that women don\u2019t have the mental capacity for it. Of course, Polg\u00e1r showed them. Anya Taylor-Joy\u2019s Netflix series \u201cThe Queen\u2019s Gambit<\/a>,\u201d in which her fictional character rises to the top as a chess champion, may have put the argument to bed on a series level as well.<\/p>\n

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\"AnyaAnya Taylor-Joy in “The Queen’s Gambit.”Phil Bray\/Netflix<\/p>\n

Leguizamo could have directed a formal documentary about the five Miami-area Black and Latino men who won the US National Chess Championship in 1998. Instead, he chose to do a straight narrative feature. In the press kit, Leguizamo said he took the job as actor and director because there were very few representations of Latino people in movies when he was growing up, especially positive ones. Fictionalized versions of true stories allow for a level of emotional and dramatic license that nonfiction filmmaking does not; I think audiences respond to that overall effect more easily. <\/p>\n

In the case of chess, however, the choice to fictionalize the story becomes a bit of a sticky situation because race becomes a shorthand in movies featuring Black and brown protagonists. Picking up the game of chess immediately tags the underprivileged minority characters not only as smart, but also as aberrations. This always struck me as ridiculous. I grew up around chess players who looked like me. My uncle, a chess champion in his undergrad days, taught me and my cousins (and whipped us mercilessly at it until we learned the game) when I was 5 years old.<\/p>\n

In my three star review<\/a> of \u201cCritical Thinking,\u201d I posed the question that opens this notebook. Though Leguizamo\u2019s film is telling a true story, I wrestled with the thought that the film inadvertently perpetuated that \u201cbrown but smart\u201d chess shorthand I believed I kept seeing in movies. I concluded that I may have been unfair in that judgment, but I really appreciated the film for forcing me to debate my own cinematic biases.<\/p>\n

\"MaxMax Pomeranc in “Searching for Bobby Fischer.” Paramount Pictures<\/p>\n

So what exactly does the standard issue central casting chess player protagonist look like in movies? Perhaps it\u2019s Max Pomeranc in Steven Zallian\u2019s 1993 drama, \u201cSearching for Bobby Fischer.\u201d One of two great movies Zallian wrote in 1993 (he also wrote \u201cSchindler\u2019s List\u201d), the film is based on a real-life chess prodigy named Joshua Waitzkin. Pomeranc plays him as a kid here, pushed by his loving father (Joe Mantegna) and mentored by two chess players: Bruce, a chess tutor, played by Ben Kingsley and Vinnie, played by Laurence Fishburne. <\/p>\n

Though he fits into that shorthand I\u2019m complaining about, Vinnie, who plays speed chess in Washington Square Park, still intrigued me. Back in my earliest tech career days on Wall Street, guys like Vinnie would air me out and take my money in the speed chess games I played in a nearby park on my lunch hours. The film contrasts its disheveled Black character\u2019s unorthodox methods with Kingsley\u2019s stricter strategies, but ultimately concludes that Vinnie is the better mentor. As usual, Fishburne is excellent here (everyone is first rate in this movie). <\/p>\n

I was far more aggravated by a recent revisit to 1994\u2019s \u201cFresh,\u201d even if I acknowledge that it\u2019s still watchable if taken as an urban fable rather than a realistic depiction of its titular character\u2019s existence. There was nothing unusual to me about seeing Black and brown people playing chess. \u201cFresh\u201d sought to make me think otherwise.<\/p>\n

This movie is a walking catalogue of hood stereotypes. Sam Jackson is also a speed chess player in Washington Square Park, but unless you\u2019re that Los Angeles interviewer who mistook Jackson for Laurence Fishburne in an ad, you\u2019re not going to confuse his character with the one in \u201cSearching for Bobby Fischer.\u201d <\/p>\n

Fresh sells drugs (stereotype alert!) and hatches a plan to extricate himself and his sister from the clutches of street life. Jackson plays his alcoholic speed chess master father, who uses their daily games to teach his son lessons in strategy. As the film progresses, we realize Fresh is, to use that stupid term, \u201cplaying three-dimensional chess.\u201d You ever notice that, in real life, that statement is always reserved for white politicians who are doing the dumbest things possible but getting away with them simply because they have power? Well, here\u2019s a more convincing example of chess strategy in action.<\/p>\n

A movie that doesn\u2019t fall into the stereotype \u2014 because its director refuses to allow it \u2014 is the underseen 2016 Disney gem, \u201cQueen of Katwe<\/a>.\u201d This true story features a female protagonist, a 10-year old Ugandan named Phiona (a superb Madina Nalwanga), who learns chess from an ordinary missionary, Robert Katende (an equally good David Oyelowo), and becomes a champion. Lupita Nyong\u2019o is powerful yet understated as Phiona\u2019s mother.<\/p>\n

The film is a kindred spirit to \u201cCritical Thinking\u201d in challenging what the movies think a chess player should look like. Director Mira Nair (a.k.a. Mayor Mamdani\u2019s mom) always brings dignity and grace to her impoverished characters, so at no point do we feel that Phiona or Robert is an example nor an aberration. They\u2019re just regular people who earn our cheers and empathy. I love this movie more every time I watch it.<\/p>\n

\"MichaelMichael B. Jordan arrives at the premiere of “Swapped” on Sunday, April 26, 2026.Richard Shotwell\/Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP<\/p>\n

I just learned that Michael B. Jordan is starring in and directing the second remake of \u201cThe Thomas Crown Affair.\u201d That film has perhaps the most famous chess game in cinema history, a sexy bit of foreplay between Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. I look forward to the remake\u2019s take on that scene. Considering Jordan\u2019s sizzling charisma and undeniable talent, perhaps he is what the standard issue chess player should look like in the movies. <\/p>\n

Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What does the standard issue chess player in the movies look like? In the 2020 real-life competition drama…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":304758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9537,9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-304757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-9537","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/304758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}