CheckmatesMovies like Checkmates
- Key Features:
- Chess, Teacher-student relationship, Coming-of-age, Personal transformation, Resilience, Teamwork, Underdogs, Divorce, Inspiration, Mentorship
- Tone:
- earnest
- Target Audience:
- Drama enthusiasts, Inspirational stories, Sports fans
- Emotional Arc:
- Disconnection → Connection
Checkmates

Candela, the headmistress of an elite school, after a traumatic divorce, returns to her old high school to lead a group of rebellious students through chess. There she will learn that in chess, and in life, it doesn't matter if you are a king or a pawn, because everyone ends up in the same box.
Checkmates
Based on a true story from 1998, five Latino and Black teenagers from the toughest underserved ghetto in Miami fight their way into the National Chess Championship under the guidance of their unconventional but inspirational teacher.

A young girl overcomes her disadvantaged upbringing in the slums of Uganda to become a Chess master.

Los Amigos wins the Spanish basketball championship for the first time but are disqualified due to Sergio’s fault, leading to their dramatic breakup. Two years later, Cecilia, an inexperienced but optimistic coach, commits to fulfilling Julio’s dream of reuniting the team. Despite a string of misfortunes associated with Cecilia’s arrival, labeled as a “jinx”, Los Amigos’ enthusiasm remains unwavering. Against all odds, they find themselves participating in a thrilling and unexpected international eSports tournament watched by millions worldwide.

Hélène, a housekeeper at a ritzy hotel in Corsica, is devoted to her family but lacks any passion in her own life. When she sees a handsome couple play a passionate game of chess, she becomes inspired to play herself. Hélène's working-class husband and spoiled daughter are soon bewildered by her obsession with chess. They also grow suspicious of Hélène's close relationship with Dr. Kröger, her eccentric American expat tutor.

After being released from prison, Zequi, a bank robber, sets out to recover money buried by his accomplice; but is horrified to learn that a high school gymnasium is now over the site where the loot is hidden.

Mario Moreno portrays a professor in this movie. A small town in the middle of no where requests the school Mario Moreno is working in for a teacher. He ends up going to give the town a hand. When he arrives he comes to know the corrupt leaders who through out the movie try to make him leave. Although he is being harassed you can see how much he cares for the kids and their circumstances. He deals with problems by using his hilarious comments.

A disgraced basketball coach is given the chance to coach Los Amigos, a team of players who are intellectually disabled, and soon realizes they just might have what it takes to make it to the national championships.

A young priest coaches a team of uncoordinated monks in order to win a soccer tournament and save their monastery from being turned into a hotel.

Delphine, a disillusioned humanities teacher, makes an agreement with her students : they leave her in peace, as they get A+ grades. But these excellent results turn into a nightmare when the class is qualified for the Latin World Championships, in Naples.

Richard Clark has just left the well-known Wellington Academy to teach at Marion Barry High School. Now, he will try to inspire the D-average students into making good grades and try to woo a fellow teacher.

The true story of one man's mission to give inner city kids of Washington DC something he never had - a future. After being incarcerated for eighteen years, Eugene Brown established the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable of. This is his inspirational story.

A divorced teacher suddenly becomes jealous of everyone, including her daughter, friends and neighbors.

After being released from prison, Dr. Nise da Silveira is back at work in a psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro where she refuses to employ the new and violent electroshock in the treatment of schizophrenics. Ridiculed by doctors, she is forced to take on the abandoned Sector for Occupational Therapy, where she would start a revolution through paintings, animals and love.

Laura has been with Antonio all her life and, just when she begins to wonder if that is really the life she wants, Sergio and Siena cross paths in their lives. Sergio is a former high school classmate and Siena, his millennial girlfriend who arrives to revolutionize everyone's lives. Laura, Raquel and Cris, close friends for years, convince their respective husbands to play a game that Siena proposes to them: the game of keys. The game consists of everyone putting their keys in a bowl. At random, each one chooses some keys and he must go to spend the night with the owner of the keys. This game will revolutionize the group of friends and their lives. It will make them discover who they are and what they really want.

A teacher with paranormal abilities helps a group of ghosts graduate high school.

Emilio, a shy, not too brilliant pupil at a humble local secondary school, has always harboured a secret love for Natalia, the cutest, brightest girl in the class. On the last day of the school year, when he finally decides to declare his love, Natalia is awarded a scholarship to study Medicine at Oxford. It would seem that all is lost for Emilio, but his drop-out school-pals are not ready to throw in the towel. After faking qualifications and scholarships, this band of brainless nuts land in Oxford, causing havoc in the normally peaceful campus existence. —The Film Catalogue

A chess grandmaster is in a big tournament, and when his lover is found painted up and the blood drained out of her body he becomes a chief suspect. After he gets a call from the killer urging him to try and figure out the game, he cooperates with police and a psychologist to try and catch the killer, but doubts linger about the grandmaster's innocence as the string of grisly murders continues.

A clique of four young teachers at a high school looks critically at their colleagues. To avoid falling in the same routine, they bring new ideas into the school lessons and play little games and pranks in their spare time -- sometimes get even more childish than their pupils. When they get opposition from the other teachers, they play tricks to get rid of them.

When a man is found dead, the investigation shatters his widow's perfect facade and exposes a hidden double life in this thriller based on real events.

Julia, a real estate agent, finds an enormous amount of money hidden in a dead man's apartment, a stroke of luck that will force her to face the wrath of the very peculiar inhabitants of the community, who will stop at nothing to get their hands on the money.

Christian is an extremely talented as well as unpredictable football player. After his latest screw-up, the president of his team decides to assign him a personal tutor, to help him in controlling his temper. Valerio is a shy and solitary professor, the exact opposite of the champion. Sparks will fly between the two at first, but soon their relationship will change both for the better.

A bank robber becomes a teacher after being released from prison and finds himself at the center of a number of crazy adventures.

Defiant 18-year-old Adela León pushes her father and an unbending headmistress to the limit in this delicious comedy.

Jaime Escalante is a mathematics teacher in a school in a hispanic neighbourhood. Convinced that his students have potential, he adopts unconventional teaching methods to try and turn gang members and no-hopers into some of the country's top algebra and calculus students.

Soccer is an alien world for Walter Vismara, an unfamiliar terrain he's always avoided. But when his job hangs in the balance, he's thrust into the role of goalkeeper by his soccer-obsessed boss. Forced into a relentless routine of practice sessions and taunts, Walter finds himself trapped in a nightmare. His troubles escalate when he discovers his beloved in the arms of his archenemy, adding a personal dimension to his challenges. Determined to prove his worth, Walter devises a plan: to play the fool outwardly while secretly honing his skills. As he navigates this comedic yet challenging journey on the soccer field, will Walter emerge victorious and finally earn the respect he deserves?

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries an unorthodox new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential... and perhaps even their genius.

When four women finally take the road trip they planned in high school, they have no idea of the things they'll bump into... sometimes literally.

There's a new girl in school, Angela, the Headmaster's neice. Every male will try to seduce her, even her uncle. Meanwhile she will drive the philosophy's teacher mad and her best friend Irma will have a good time with the classmates. Will they get the grades?

A retired academic teacher tries to find the love of his youth after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Teen comedy set in the school-year of 1994. José is the new kid on high-school, falling immediately for the popular and freckled Christina. Trying to impress her, he's going to unsuccessfully join the soccer try-outs. Is he shooting way out of his league?

Sister Marina, a very unorthodox nun, is sent during the summer of 1994 to El Parral, a boarding school for boys threatened to be closed soon. Even though the kids welcome Marina with all kinds of pranks, they will, little by little, become something very close to the family they never had.

An art instructor and an English teacher form a rivalry that ends up with a competition at their school in which students decide whether words or pictures are more important.

Agathe Langlois, Parisian until the end of the nails well varnishes, is delighted: she is going to be confirmed as a professor of English. The happiness of the good news will not last as she learns that she is deployed to the countryside.

After its football team is disqualified for insulting a referee during a major game, a small country town risks losing its funding along with its field. To avoid this disaster, there is only one solution: creating a new team made up exclusively of women to defend the city’s colors! But in a community where football has always been an activity reserved for men, these women’s new status will be sure to shake up the daily lives of the town’s residents…

Something terrible is happening in class 3A at Calmecatl Junior High. No one can leave the classroom until the guilty party is found. This is the device that gives us a glimpse of the ethics, games, esthetics and eroticism of these girl-women. It is not easy to say what the subject is, there are so many: the discovery of sexuality, discrimination, chance, drugs, maternity, traditions, betrayals, power, love. A mural of a complex reality from the point of view of twenty-something women in the skin of 14 to 15 year old girls.

Tennis player turned coach Tashi has taken her husband, Art, and transformed him into a world-famous Major champion. To jolt him out of his recent losing streak, she signs him up for a "Challenger" event — close to the lowest level of pro tournament — where he finds himself standing across the net from his former best friend and Tashi's former boyfriend.

Cesar is 'the boss', the one everyone hates, the one some flatter and the one nobody tells the truth; the great successful businessman is on the edge of the precipice. One night his actions crumble down, his partners betray him and his wife kicks him out of the house. Entrenched in his office, he tries relentlessly to recover his company and his life. But he will not do it alone, César will find a very special ally, Ariana, the cleaner of the night shift.

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.

Florencia and Vicente are getting divorced. When both are promoted at their jobs, they will do anything in order to do not keep custody of their children.

Paulina is a young lawyer with a promising career in Buenos Aires, who chooses to go back to her home town. Her father, Fernando, is a well known judge. Against his will, Paulina decides to teach in a suburban high school as part of an inclusion program. One night, after the second week working there, she's brutally assaulted by a gang. With the disapproval of the people around her, she decides to go back to work, in the neighborhood where she was attacked, without realizing that her attackers may be even closer than she thought.

Flora and Victor are fun, modern, caring parents. That is, until they decide to get a divorce, and the perfect job opportunity turns up for them. They now have one problem: custody.

Two quarreling teachers vie for the same woman. In the same time the two will have to accompany a class on a trip in Spain.

Georgina is a teacher determined to make a difference in the lives of the children she educates in the classroom of a wagon school in rural Mexico.

Alfonso, pursues the girl of his life to Harvard, determined to conquer her under the same friends and outlandish plans that his brother used in Oxford. But when you least expect it appears Martha, the girl he fell in love while at school.

When he suddenly finds himself without his long-standing blue-collar job, Larry Crowne enrolls at his local college to start over. There, he becomes part of an eclectic community of students and develops a crush on his teacher.

Abraham and his female friend Álex have a close relationship; they share both secrets and fears. When Abraham starts going out with Anchi, he begins to distance himself from Álex, who gradually dives into a living hell where she encounters strange apparitions, nightmarish visions and extreme situations.

Chris, a former tennis pro, takes a job as an instructor and befriends his wealthy young student, Tom. After being introduced to his family, Chris is soon engaged to Tom's sister, Chloe. Despite the professional and financial advantages that this relationship affords him, Chris becomes obsessed with Tom's fiancee, American actress Nola.

A few months before the ’92 Barcelona Olympic Games, it looks like the Spanish water polo team will hardly make a splash during their home field Olympics. The national team is a battleground under attack on two fronts: the harsh techniques of their new coach, which threaten to incapacitate more than one player, and the infighting between leaders Manel Estiarte and Pedro Aguado. Can the team stay united and overcome their personal differences? Will reaching sporting glory be possible in the face of such adversity?

Based on a true story, in which Richmond High School head basketball coach Ken Carter made headlines in 1999 for benching his undefeated team due to poor academic results.

After Carlos is tasked to care for Paola, both characters must work out their differences to make their time together more pleasant. As time goes on, they are faced with lessons about trust, mutual respect, and perhaps love.

When one of her students is suspected of theft, teacher Carla Nowak decides to get to the bottom of the matter. Caught between her ideals and the school system, the consequences of her actions threaten to break her.

A comedic romp that celebrates the power of friendship to turn your life around, Dias de Futbol introduces us to Antonio, an ex-convict and amateur shrink who convinces his pals that the best way to overcome their midlife crises and lack of success with women is to reassemble their old soccer team and win something in life, even if only a local championship. Directed by David Serrano. Starring Alberto San Juan, Natalia Verbeke (Dot the I, Son of the Bride), Pere Ponce, and Fernando Tejero.

A comedy centered on a has-been coach who is given a shot at redemption when he's asked to run his local high school's girls basketball team

Ana Paula catches her fiancé cheating. After a night of drinking, she wakes up far from home, not so certain she wants to go back.

In a high school in the outskirts of Rome, it's the last day before the summer holidays. A literature teacher reminisces the past year and wonders what will become of the students he cared for as if they were his children.

A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son’s custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

Bernadinho and Pedro are students and face the classic tasks of fulfilling school obligations, taking good grades, being well behaved and complying with school rules, increasingly elaborated thanks to director Ademar. Frustrated, Pedro ends up finding a diary of how to cause chaos in school without being caught, which leads the two friends to follow the tips of the notebook.

This comedy takes its cue from such female-centered films as "Bridesmaids" and "Trainwreck." Pic centers on a woman who makes a living from breaking up couples and decides to take on the task of splitting up her sister's relationship with her jerk of a boyfriend.

A group of former high school classmates meets for a reunion 15 years after graduation, only to discover that any innocence or friendship is long lost.

Former Marine Louanne Johnson lands a gig teaching in a pilot program for bright but underachieving teens at a notorious inner-city high school. After having a terrible first day, she decides she must throw decorum to the wind. When Johnson returns to the classroom, she does so armed with a no-nonsense attitude informed by her military training and a fearless determination to better the lives of her students -- no matter what the cost.

Teacher in the most prestigious highschool in the country, François enjoys the life he’s always known, in the intellectual and bourgeois society of Paris. Trapped in a situation where he’s forced to accept a job in a school of a tough underprivileged suburb, he finds himself confronted to his own limits and to the upheaval of his values and certainties.

All seems well for Amadeo, a shy but talented foosball player who's in love with the free-spirited Laura. Trouble strikes when Grosso, the world's best soccer player, returns home with plans to destroy the village and turn it into a new sports stadium. When Grosso kidnaps Laura, Amadeo receives the ultimate surprise when the figurines from his foosball table spring to life to help him save his beloved and reclaim the town.

A celebrity journalist and a down-to-earth teacher find their relationship in rocky waters when a job gets in the way of their new life together.

Unwilling to let his daughter attend a high school trip unsupervised, a protective father and his charismatic mother-in-law show up to crash the party.

Professor Lipari teaches in a public school and is in a full-on existential crisis. He has no faith in himself and in the possibility of changing the world for the better. At school, a former student of his who is also a teacher will change his attitude.

A teacher reconnects with an old student who is now an attorney representing a family who is suing the school for graduating their son who still cannot read or write. Amid the daily chaos of teaching in an inner city school, Alex Jurel tries to decide if he will lie at his deposition to protect the school or tell the truth and risk throwing away his career.

When a legendary Go master loses his title to a one-time friend and protégé, he sets out to reclaim it in a high-stakes battle of wits and skill.

After thirty years teaching in London, Mark Thackeray retires and returns to Chicago. There, however, the challenge of teaching kids in an inner city school proves to be too much to resist.

A group of tenants facing eviction due to a city renovation unite to fight back, but as they clash with the landlord and his ruthless attorney, they each transform into the opposite of who they once were.

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.

Small-town Pennsylvania schoolteacher Linda Sinclair balances her staid home life with an incredible passion for her subject. Then a former star pupil reenters her life after failing as a playwright in New York City. Seeing in his script the inspiration that she has always longed to instill in her students, this dyed-in-the-wool romantic enlists the help of long-suffering drama teacher Carl to mount the work as the high school’s next and riskiest production.

During a lunar eclipse, seven friends gather for dinner and decide to play a game in which they must share with each other the content of every message, email or phone call they receive throughout the evening.

In a bid to save her son's end-of-school camping trip, a single mom steps in as the bus driver while trying to show him she really can be a cool mom.

Elementary school teacher Michele Cortese is about to start a whole new life. After 40 years of teaching in the metropolitan Roman jungle, he had to move to a village in Central Italy, to teach in a tiny school with just a few children aged 7-10. Struggling to overcome his urban inadequacy, he finds a friendly face in vice-principal Agnese and gradually manages to fit in, thanks to her and their spirited pupils. As everything seems to be falling into place, unwelcome news comes through: the school has failed to meet its student quota for the next year and will soon be shut for good.

In the sequel to Turma da Mônica: Laços, we follow Mônica, Jimmy Five, Maggy and Smudge dealing with the consequences of a mistake made at school. At the same time, they face transformations from childhood to adolescence and are about to discover the value of friendship.

Alejandra and her dad Roberto have just moved to town. She is new at school, he has a new job. Starting over is sometimes complicated when you have left so much behind.

Four stagnant high school teachers decide to test out a theory that maintaining a constant level of intoxication will improve their overall lives.

Pierino has again flunked the exams. Therefore, his desperate parents send him to boarding school.

Lalo is a teenager tormented by the recent death of his dad, and being forced to move to an old house with his grandmother Elena. After taking his dad's old wristwatch, the ghost of a young girl begins to haunt him. Now, Lalo's life is in danger as he tries to unfold the mysterious ghost who keeps frightening him, hoping to stop her from dragging him for good.

An acclaimed college hoops coach is demoted to a junior varsity team after a public meltdown.

A deadbeat teacher helps an angry, aimless teenager find direction in life during his final year of high school.

A former professional dancer volunteers to teach dance in the New York public school system and, while his background first clashes with his students' tastes, together they create a completely new style of dance. Based on the story of ballroom dancer, Pierre Dulane.

The last train travel of the year from Barcelona to Madrid, suddenly stops by a voltage drop in the middle of nowhere during a fierce snowstorm. Because of the peculiarity of its passengers, will begin to emerge hilarious conflicts between them.

A Parisian teacher loses his cool when his teenage daughter tells him she plans to drop out of school and move in with her boyfriend.

The Manzoni High School in Milan is the worst in Italy. When the percentage of those promoted falls to 12%, it's time for the last resort: to entrust the classes to the worst of the available teachers.

A former footballer living in Brittany enlists his old teammates to help the local fisherman to win some games in order to raise money and save jobs.

An aging codger named Geri plays a daylong game of chess in the park against himself. Somehow, he begins losing to his livelier opponent. But just when the game's nearly over, Geri manages to turn the tables.

In a town in the Northwest of the province of Buenos Aires, a group of neighbors is organized to recover the economy of the area, but when the corralito is implemented in the country and they suffer a fraud, their hopes disappear. Now, they will unite to recover the lost money and give the blow of their lives to their greatest enemy.

Paz seems to have a perfect life. She has a job, a partner and friends but something's missing. In reality, there are things she is unhappy about. She feels anxious and burdened but can't bring herself to express these feelings. Until one day she turns to a strange therapy that will make her say absolutely everything she thinks. How would your life be if you only said what you think?

One football match on a dirt pitch near Rome becomes a day of reckoning as a young player, his coach and their team's owner wrestle internal demons.

Muriel is beautiful, free-spirited and bed-ridden since a horrific accident. Leo is a drunk middle-aged ex-boxer. Desperate for work and unqualified, he interviews for Muriel, who hires him to cook and care for her against her better judgment. Initially out of his depth, Leo slowly wins Muriel's trust. As Muriel teaches him to read, he forces her to confront the joys beyond her window.

Diana Watts, a high school teacher in Austin, Texas, is in the midst of an affair with one of her students, Eric Tull. As the reality of their situation forces itself upon them, Diana puts the relationship on hold. It’s only a matter of time before she gives in again to her desire; this time even more recklessly than before.

When Jeff and Cathy’s grandson Jiji is selected for a training camp with Arsenal, it’s a dream opportunity for the whole family to head over to England and meet the royal family.

A former basketball all-star, who has lost his wife and family foundation in a struggle with addiction, attempts to regain his soul and salvation by becoming the coach of a disparate ethnically mixed high school basketball team at his alma mater.

Yannick moves to a small, quiet town to study cinema. One day when he fell off his bike, he knocked at the door of the Beaulieu residence so he could clean the blood off his hands. But Jacques Beaulieu and his family had other plans for Yannick. Beaulieu is a righteous psychopath and fanatic chess player who wants to rid the world of evil. And even though Ian has done nothing wrong, he is beaten, tortured and tormented before Beaulieu makes him an offer: win at chess and he is free to go. And so Ian is now a pawn in Beaulieu 's game. A game in which he will either lose his mind or his life.

Introverted Girona student Nacho meets two delinquents from the city's Chinatown and gets caught up in a summer onslaught of burglaries and hold ups that will change his life.

Mona Gray is a 20-year-old loner who, as a child, turned to math for salvation after her father became ill. As an adult, Mona now teaches the subject and must help her students through their own crises.

More than anything, 30-year-old Rose longs to be reunited with Mickaël, her estranged 11-year-old son who has been placed with a foster family and blames his mother for their long separation. When she discovers that Mickaël is crazy about wrestling, Rose thinks she's found a way to melt the ice: she'll put together a tag team with three girlfriends from the store where all four work as checkout girls...

A seven-year-old chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer.
