Bobby Fischer Against The World (2011)
Average Rating: 7.1/10
Reviews Counted: 45
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 6
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Critic Reviews: 10
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.8/5
User Ratings: 1,522
My Rating
Movie Info
Considered by many to be the greatest chess player to ever live, Bobby Fischer Against the World is the first and definitive documentary biography of the eccentric genius who rose from humble beginnings and captivated a world audience with his victory over Russia's Boris Spassky at the height of the Cold War. His trajectory propelled him from child prodigy to US champion at age 15 and world champion at 29. Quixotically refusing to defend his championship, Fischer became a virtual recluse for
Watch It Now
ADVERTISEMENT
All Critics (46) | Top Critics (10) | Fresh (39) | Rotten (6) | DVD (2)
A once-in-a-lifetime character makes for a fascinating documentary subject in producer-director Liz Garbus' "Bobby Fischer Against the World."
Top CriticLiz Garbus's documentary about the great American chess champion Bobby Fischer does its level best to avoid the easy cliché equating madness and genius, except that, in the case of Fischer, the cliché apparently holds up.
Tactfully but strongly posits a connection between the genius he brought to an infinitely complex game and the madness that defined his relationship to just about everything else.
Supplies a cracked, conflicted genius trapped in his ceaseless endgame.
Garbus handles this decline with tact. The sorry spectacle of the ranting codger never effaces the image of the boy concentrating his entire being over a chessboard. You have to love that kid and pity him.
Overall, the film lacks that precise hook of exactly why it's worth telling this story now, but it remains a fascinating story nonetheless.
An affective portrait of an intense, obsessed man and a tense, twisty, and occasionally inspiring narrative surrounding the Fischer-Spassky match.
Absorbing documentary biopic on the former world chess champion Bobby Fischer.
Tackles the iconoclastic nature of its subject both personally and professionally, making a persuasive, emotionally involving case for the dark, troubled flipside of genius.
A gripping film about a subject almost too good to be true.
at once the director's most accomplished and entrancing film to date
This is strong and effective documentary filmmaking, but it's only a lengthy prologue to the story on which Liz Garbus clearly wants to focus.
Garbus tells his story with aplomb, placing it in the greater context of the Cold War, and also examining the human toll and anguish Fischer brought upon himself.
What sets this film aside from being a conventional biographical account of Fischer's life and career, is when it examines the nature of genius and why Fischer was so unpredictable, erratic and eventually intensely paranoid.
This is an utterly compelling insight into modern history, psychology, international politics and boardgame warfare.
Garbus's portrait of Fischer as a lonely child and a monomaniacal young chess player becomes a portrait of his times as well...
The film may stick to the standard rise-and-fall story arc, but it does pull together a lot of fascinating archival material.
[A] fascinating but rather low-key documentary...
It's a sad story of genius paying for the gift.
It's a life so incredible and so tragic that even those with no knowledge of chess will be enthralled.
Audience Reviews for Bobby Fischer Against The World
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
Discussion Forum
There are no discussion threads for Bobby Fischer Against The World yet.
What's Hot On RT
Bradley Cooper's Best Movies
Trailer for new Coen Bros movie
Fast & Furious cars gallery
Blockbusters ranked!
Featured on RT
- Total Recall: Bradley Cooper's Best Movies 25
- Parental Guidance: Epic and Beautiful Creatures 2
- Comic Book Movies You Can Watch Online 6
- In Pictures: The Cars of Fast & Furious 0
- Digital Multiplex: Warm Bodies and Aftershock 8
- Discover the Best-Reviewed Films in Summer Movie Scorecard 2013 0
- RT on DVD & Blu-Ray: The Last Stand and Side Effects 17
Top Headlines
-
Vin Diesel Says Fast & Furious 7 Will Take Place in L.A.
0
-
10 Things You (Probably) Don't Know About the Hangover Movies
1
-
Zack Snyder, Christopher Nolan, and David S. Goyer Talk Man of Steel
0
-
New Transporter Trilogy in the Works
0
-
Richard Linklater Plans "Spiritual Sequel" to Dazed and Confused
0
-
King of Kong Filmmaker Seeks Funding for Lost Limb Documentary
0
-
Which Film Franchise Has Been the Best for Female Characters?
6
Fresh Links
Featured
Star Trek Movies Ranked
HitFix offers their own take on the worst-to-best of the Enterprise crew's cinematic adventures.
Top 10 Star Trek Villains
Rolling Stone unveils the Enterprise's most irksome adversaries.
Celebrity Yearkbook Flashback
We'll bet you never realized how many stars were cheerleaders and high school athletes!
50 Most Classic Movie Moms
In celebration of Mother's Day, TimeOut offers up 50 iconic matriarchs from the big screen.
Weirdest Movie Siblings
From Twins to The Royal Tenenbaums, Moviefone explores cinema's oddest siblings.
Promos
Follow RT on Twitter!
Spice up your feed with hourly Tomatometer updates!
At the top of the chess pantheon was Bobby Fischer, chessmaster and one time world champion, who was able to play entire games in his head and could outplay almost any other opponent. Sadly, that also included himself, as that same monomania which made him so successful at chess, made him that much less successful as a human being.(There is an intriguing chicken vs. egg debate here concerning his mental illness.) Later in life and post fame, he retains his intelligence to antagonize everybody he encounters with his own brand of twisted and bigoted logic while losing his mind.
Centered as the documentay is around the 1972 Chess World Championship versus Boris Spassky, who is still very much alive, oh by the way, Cold War politics come into play.(This chess match was apparently a very huge deal. I love the newscasts of the day that would go - "Watergate...McGovern...but first chess...) But to counter something said in the film, yes, the Soviet state supported its athletes, but they were not professional in the way we think of them today. Rather, they were probably allowed to live in a pretty nice apartment and did not have to stand on line for food.