80
Metascore
5 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Wall Street JournalKyle SmithWall Street JournalKyle SmithChess Story is a nerve-scraping exercise in grand deception.
- 80Film ThreatBenjamin FranzFilm ThreatBenjamin FranzChess Story is a subtle, soft-spoken killer of a film. It’s absolutely worth your time if you like World War II-era dramas. Seek it out.
- 80Los Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenLos Angeles TimesMichael RechtshaffenAlthough the blandly nondescript title doesn’t exactly suggest the promise of deep intrigue, Philipp Stölzl’s Chess Story masterfully confounds expectations as a tautly calibrated, intricately constructed Chinese puzzle of a period drama set during Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria.
- 75Slant MagazineWilliam RepassSlant MagazineWilliam RepassPhilipp Stölzl craftily melds the genres of period drama and psychological thriller, not for the purposes of reheated nostalgia, but to shed a cold light on the recursions of historical trauma.
- 75Movie NationRoger MooreMovie NationRoger MooreThat’s what Chess Story is, mournful and just cryptic enough to leave you guessing what you just saw, but touched, engaged and intrigued by it, comfortable in realizing that over-explaining is not necessary and would spoil some of the fun.