Premiering on Netflix in 2020, The Queen’s Gambit reignited widespread interest in chess. Fittingly, a new Netflix documentary, arriving six years later, feels eerily similar to the miniseries. Queen of Chess spotlights a real-life chess prodigy in a fun, feel-good documentary that balances chess strategy with an engaging narrative.
Judit Polgár is a Hungarian chess grandmaster who shot to fame as one of the first female chess prodigies, pushing the boundaries of what women in chess could do by playing against and beating the best grandmasters in the world. The film begins by setting up her biggest challenge - defeating top-ranked grandmaster Garry Kasparov - before we rewind to her early childhood and upbringing.
The film doesn’t shy away from covering the militant way in which her father homeschooled all three of his daughters, determined to turn them into chess geniuses by tutoring them every day for hours on end. Interviews with Polgár, her sisters, and her parents help soften these hardships, instead focusing on how they were unable to travel outside Hungary or Eastern Europe due to restrictions by their communist regime. It sets up the first of many challenges that Polgár faces, even as she continues to win tournaments (her first one at the age of six) against men and women alike.
Although chess can be a dry topic and difficult to portray as exciting on film, Queen of Chess remains engaging by focusing on discreet challenges or battles, delineated by colorful title screens with “Polgár vs Opponent”, whether that’s one person or a larger group. It works to build momentum towards later battles with Kasparov while telling audiences how Polgár beat Bobby Fischer’s record as the youngest grandmaster ever and how she and her sisters won the gold medal for Hungary in the Chess Olympiad, making the girls national heroes and in demand worldwide.
Besides multiple interviews with its subjects, including Garry Kasparov himself, the film includes interviews with chess experts and reenactments that add to the drama of a chess match otherwise captured on grainy film. Chess strategy can be notoriously dense, but the film does its best to explain tactics like the Sicilian Defense and the differences between Middlegame and Endgame stages. Still, chess games can be long and difficult to understand, and it’s possible that Queen of Chess loses momentum if you don’t know anything about the world of chess tournaments.
Overall, Queen of Chess is a feel-good and inspiring story about a young girl breaking barriers in what was traditionally a man’s sport. Judit Polgár was the first woman to break into the top ten best chess players in the world and deserves to have her own film that documents her journey. Already slated for a 2026 release on Netflix, hopefully other young women will be inspired to pick up a chessboard, just as The Queen’s Gambit did previously.
