The Queen's Gambit (Season 1)

The Queen's Gambit (2020) is a Netflix limited drama series you can watch online on iFILM — seven episodes, Anya Taylor-Joy, and chess as the lens through which one woman's entire life gets examined. Writer-director Scott Frank adapted Walter Tevis's 1983 novel for the screen.

Beth Harmon arrives at a Kentucky orphanage in the late 1950s and stumbles upon the janitor playing chess alone in the basement. Within weeks she is beating him. From there the story tracks her rise through regional tournaments and into Cold War-era showdowns against the top Soviet grandmasters, all while she fights a dependence on tranquilizers that started with the green pills handed out at the orphanage. The chess board is where Beth is most herself — and also where her control is most at risk.

The series won eleven Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes in 2021, with Taylor-Joy taking the Globe for best actress. Its release triggered a documented spike in chess set sales worldwide. Stream The Queen's Gambit online on iFILM.