Best movies like Pawn Sacrifice

Similar in 78%

The Coldest Game (2019)

Plot Summary:

During 1962's Cuban missile crisis, a troubled math genius finds himself drafted to play in a U.S.-Soviet chess match -- and a deadly game of espionage.

Similar in 82%

The World Champion (2021)

Plot Summary:

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.

Similar in 90%

61* (2001)

Plot Summary:

In 1961, Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle played for the New York Yankees. One, Mantle, was universally loved, while the other, Maris, was universally hated. Both men started off with a bang, and both were nearing Babe Ruth's 60 home run record. Which man would reach it?.

Similar in 79%

Pele: Birth of a Legend (2016)

Plot Summary:

The life story of Brazilian football legend, Pele.

Similar in 85%

Ali (2001)

Plot Summary:

In 1964, a brash, new pro boxer, fresh from his Olympic gold medal victory, explodes onto the scene: Cassius Clay. Bold and outspoken, he cuts an entirely new image for African Americans in sport with his proud public self-confidence and his unapologetic belief that he is the greatest boxer of all time. Yet at the top of his game, both Ali's personal and professional lives face the ultimate test.

Similar in 77%

Million Dollar Arm (2014)

Plot Summary:

In a last-ditch effort to save his career, sports agent JB Bernstein (Jon Hamm) dreams up a wild game plan to find Major League Baseball’s next great pitcher from a pool of cricket players in India. He soon discovers two young men who can throw a fastball but know nothing about the game of baseball. Or America. It’s an incredible and touching journey that will change them all — especially JB, who learns valuable lessons about teamwork, commitment and family.

Similar in 86%

Seabiscuit (2003)

Plot Summary:

True story of the undersized Depression-era racehorse whose victories lifted not only the spirits of the team behind it but also those of their nation.

Similar in 82%

Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993)

Plot Summary:

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

Similar in 85%

Without Limits (1998)

Plot Summary:

The film follows the life of famous 1970s runner Steve Prefontaine from his youth days in Oregon to the University of Oregon where he worked with the legendary coach Bill Bowerman, later to Olympics in Munich and his early death at 24 in a car crash.

Similar in 85%

Miracle (2004)

Plot Summary:

In 1980, the United States Ice Hockey team's coach, Herb Brooks, put a ragtag squad of college kids up against the legendary juggernaut from the Soviet Union at the Olympic Games. Despite the long odds, Team USA carried the pride of a nation yearning for a distraction from world events. With the world watching, the team rose to the occasion, prompting broadcaster Al Michaels' now famous question to the millions viewing at home: "Do you believe in miracles?" Yes!.

Similar in 78%

Radio (2003)

Plot Summary:

High school football coach, Harold Jones befriends Radio, a mentally-challenged man who becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, South Carolina. Their friendship extends over several decades, where Radio transforms from a shy, tormented man into an inspiration to his community.

Similar in 81%

Moneyball (2011)

Plot Summary:

The story of Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball team on a budget, by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players.

Similar in 88%

Thirteen Days (2000)

Plot Summary:

Dramatisation of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nuclear standoff with the USSR sparked by the discovery by the Americans of missle bases established on the Soviet allied island of Cuba. Shown from the perspective of the US President, John F Kennedy, his staff and advisors.

Similar in 84%

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

Plot Summary:

American car designer Carroll Shelby and the British-born driver Ken Miles work together to battle corporate interference, the laws of physics, and their own personal demons to build a revolutionary race car for Ford Motor Company and take on the dominating race cars of Enzo Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France in 1966.

Similar in 80%

The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)

Plot Summary:

This film is based on the actual events that took place in 1971 when Stanford professor Dr. Philip Zimbardo created what became one of the most shocking and famous social experiments of all time.

Similar in 82%

Breach (2007)

Plot Summary:

Eric O'Neill, a computer specialist who wants to be made an agent is assigned to clerk for Robert Hanssen, a senior agent with 25 years in the FBI, and to write down everything Hanssen does. O'Neill's told it's an investigation of Hanssen's sexual habits, however Hanssen is really suspected of spying for the Soviet Union and Russia for years and being responsible for the deaths of agents working for the United States.

Similar in 85%

Invictus (2009)

Plot Summary:

Newly elected President Nelson Mandela knows his nation remains racially and economically divided in the wake of apartheid. Believing he can bring his people together through the universal language of sport, Mandela rallies South Africa's rugby team as they make their historic run to the 1995 Rugby World Cup Championship match.

Similar in 88%

Queen of Katwe (2016)

Plot Summary:

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

Similar in 77%

42 (2013)

Plot Summary:

The powerful story of Jackie Robinson, the legendary baseball player who broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier when he joined the roster of the Brooklyn Dodgers. The film follows the innovative Dodgers’ general manager Branch Rickey, the MLB executive who first signed Robinson to the minors and then helped to bring him up to the show.

Similar in 83%

Argo (2012)

Plot Summary:

As the Iranian revolution reaches a boiling point, a CIA 'exfiltration' specialist concocts a risky plan to free six Americans who have found shelter at the home of the Canadian ambassador.

Similar in 88%

Awakenings (1990)

Plot Summary:

Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.

Similar in 81%

Jobs (2013)

Plot Summary:

The story of Steve Jobs' ascension from college dropout into one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century.

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Experimenter (2015)

Plot Summary:

Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment that still resonates to this day, in which people think they’re delivering painful electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Despite his pleads for mercy, the majority of subjects don’t stop the experiment, administering what they think is a near-fatal electric shock, simply because they’ve been told to do so. With Nazi Adolf Eichmann’s trial airing in living rooms across America, Milgram strikes a nerve in popular culture and the scientific community with his exploration into people’s tendency to comply with authority. Celebrated in some circles, he is also accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster, but his wife Sasha stands by him through it all.

Similar in 77%

The Queen's Gambit (2020)

Plot Summary:

In a Kentucky orphanage in the 1950s, a young girl discovers an astonishing talent for chess while struggling with addiction.

Similar in 75%

Secretariat (2010)

Plot Summary:

Housewife and mother Penny Chenery agrees to take over her ailing father's Virginia-based Meadow Stables, despite her lack of horse-racing knowledge. Against all odds, Chenery - with the help of veteran trainer Lucien Laurin - manages to navigate the male-dominated business, ultimately fostering the first Triple Crown winner in 25 years.

Similar in 89%

The Imitation Game (2014)

Plot Summary:

Based on the real life story of legendary cryptanalyst Alan Turing, the film portrays the nail-biting race against time by Turing and his brilliant team of code-breakers at Britain's top-secret Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, during the darkest days of World War II.

Similar in 76%

Nixon (1995)

Plot Summary:

An all-star cast powers this epic look at American President Richard M. Nixon, a man carrying the fate of the world on his shoulders while battling the self-destructive demands within. Spanning his troubled boyhood in California to the shocking Watergate scandal that would end his presidency.

Similar in 90%

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Plot Summary:

At Princeton University, John Nash struggles to make a worthwhile contribution to serve as his legacy to the world of mathematics. He finally makes a revolutionary breakthrough that will eventually earn him the Nobel Prize. After graduate school he turns to teaching, becoming romantically involved with his student Alicia. Meanwhile the government asks his help with breaking Soviet codes, which soon gets him involved in a terrifying conspiracy plot. Nash grows more and more paranoid until a discovery that turns his entire world upside down. Now it is only with Alicia's help that he will be able to recover his mental strength and regain his status as the great mathematician we know him as today.