When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
It's a dreary Christmas 1944 for the American POWs in Stalag 17 and the men in Barracks 4, all sergeants, have to deal with a grave problem—there seems to be a security leak.
A man’s head is bursting with thoughts and decisions. A gardener is about to explode – somebody has trampled on her flowerbeds. The man is looking for somebody who is better at playing chess than his dachshund. The gardener is looking for a mysterious vandal who is missing a yellow boot. In the end, they might just be looking for the same thing.
The year is 1949. A young Texan named John Grady finds himself without a home after his mother sells the ranch where he has spent his entire life. Lured south of the border by the romance of cowboy life and the promise of a fresh start, Cole and his pal embark on an adventure that will test their resilience, define their maturity, and change their lives forever.
A young, idealist American gets a job as a train conductor for the Zentropa railway network in postwar, US-occupied Frankfurt. As various people try to take advantage of him, he soon finds his position politically sensitive, and gets caught up in a whirlpool of conspiracies and Nazi sympathisers.
Death and violence anger twelve year old drug courier Fresh, who sets his employers against each other.
In the gripping drama "God Help Us", a desperate man stands on the edge of self-destruction caught in a supernatural game of life and death. An Angel and a Demon engage in an otherworldly game of chess to determine the man's fate. Tension rises as the dual between the two extraterrestrial beings mirrors the man's internal struggle with each move on the chessboard propelling the man closer to either salvation or despair. Will Angel's divine strategy prevail or will Demon's conniving manoeuvres let him leave? "God Help Us" is a thought-provoking journey as it challenges viewers about the fragility of the human soul exploring themes of faith, resilience and morality
A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.
American chess champion Bobby Fischer prepares for a legendary match-up against Russian Boris Spassky.
The Polish national chess squad, the 'Golden Team', won the world chess championship in Hamburg in 1930, and was renamed by the German press as the 'Bombenmannschaft' ('Bomber Crew'). The film focuses on team leader, Akiba Rubinstein, alongside his fellow players Dawid Przepiórka, Ksawery Tartakower, Mieczyslaw Najdorf, Paulin Frydman and Kazimierz Makarczyk. They battle to win the trophy as well as dealing with the mental illness of Rubinstein and the outbreak of World War II. The film tracks the fate of the Polish players, some of whom are Jewish, as the Nazis occupy Poland.
1938. While the Nazi troops march into Vienna, the lawyer Josef Bartok hastily tries to escape to the USA with his wife but is arrested by the Gestapo. Bartok remains steadfast and refuses to cooperate with the Gestapo that requires confidential information from him. Thrown into solitary confinement, Bartok is psychologically tormented for months and begins to weaken. However, when he steals an old book about chess it sets him on course to overcome the mental suffering inflicted upon him, until it becomes a dangerous obsession.
Every Sunday, lonely bachelor and refined judge Mladen goes to play chess with his friend, sculptor Fedji. Slowly, he engages in a love affair with Neda, Fedia's wife, and almost invisibly, a love triangle forms. Chess board is the central part of the film, as moves on the board reflect emotions of the characters.
The plot revolves around three men waiting to be deported in a prison. To escape the monotony, they form chess pieces from their bread rations, with which they then play against each other. Grünstein, a Polish Jew, proves to be a real talent, because although he is a beginner, he manages to defeat even the experienced player Lodeck, a German sailor, with his "Grünstein Variant".
What if the events in a key era in our history were actually completely different than what our history textbooks try to tell us? What if Master Jan Hus didn't even get warm in Constance, let alone burn up? What if Jan Zizka had more than one healthy eye? This animated comedy from director Pavel Koutský playfully breaks the myths about the Hussite era as the pedestal of history is occupied not by preachers and military leaders but by two unbelievable scatterbrains, who become the heroes of their time against their will.
Upon a stay in his grandparent's countryside house, young writer Matt begins to encounter strange happenings as he attempts to write his first novel.
Private detective and former football player Harry Moseby gets hired on to what seems a standard missing person case, as a former Hollywood actress whose only major roles came thanks to being married to a studio mogul wants Moseby to find and return her daughter. Harry travels to Florida to find her, but he begins to see a connection between the runaway girl, the world of Hollywood stuntmen, and a suspicious mechanic when an unsolved murder comes to light.
Famed reporter Stephen O'Malley travels to a small town to investigate the death of a national hero.
Television play
Some sporting victories are about more than just claiming a title. Some of them go down in history. The film follows the most dramatic and legendary showdown in the history of chess – the match between Anatoly Karpov, then world champion, and Viktor Korchnoi, a recent emigrant from the USSR. In this battle between two outstanding chess players, a duel of personalities under immense psychological pressure, the stakes are incomprehensibly high.
Warsaw, Poland, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. Josh Mansky, a troubled math genius and former US chess champion, is recruited to hold a dangerous public match against the Soviet champion, while playing the deadly game of espionage hidden in the darkest shadows of a hostile territory.