This Netflix Documentary Tells The Story of The Jewish ‘Queen of Chess’

“Queen of Chess” debuted in February 2026 on Netflix, featuring the story of chess grandmaster Judit Polgár and her sisters Susan and Sofia. The achievements of Judit and her sisters are many and well known; all raised by parents determined to make them chess prodigies, they each excelled at the game and earned international titles for their efforts. 

What is less known about Judit and her sisters, however, is that they were also raised Jewish. Growing up in Hungary when it was a part of the Soviet Union, they faced intense scrutiny from local authorities, who were convinced their chess-centric upbringing was borderline child abuse. 

Hoping for more insight into their lives — and the challenges they overcame — I watched “Queen of Chess” this month. What I saw both inspired and frustrated me — at times simultaneously — even as it presented a rare portrait into Jewish joy and female empowerment in a male-dominated environment. 

The “Queen of Chess” begins with a contrasting montage of Gary Kasparov, who is widely considered to be the world’s greatest chess player, and the Polgár sisters navigating the chess world through childhood and adolescence while simultaneously grappling with challenges of poverty and growing up in the Soviet Union. Jewishness is not brought up at all, though Kasparov is half Jewish and the Polgárs are Jewish. The religion’s centrality to the sisters’ upbringing goes unmentioned in discussions of their childhood, even as their father has openly discussed the influence of Judaism with its focus on intensive study and dedication to learning (as with the Talmud) in crafting the intensive regimen of training that the girls underwent beginning at age 5.

The decision to exclude Judaism from the exploration of their childhood may seem like a casual omission in the name of a condensed film, but to me it felt like a real loss. Without the context of their family, viewers who don’t know, for example, that their grandfather was a survivor of Auschwitz, won’t understand the deeper pressure to survive that the Polgár sisters faced, not just on the chessboard, but in the Soviet Union, too. 

The only indication that the family is Jewish is in the tinkling of a wine glass, smashed at Judit’s wedding as per Jewish tradition. Happening over halfway through the film, this is woefully insufficient Jewish cultural representation, likely to be missed by non-Jewish viewers. The absence of Judaism raised many questions in my mind — particularly given the otherwise authentic and non-glamorized portrayals of chess and the sisters.

Using real footage from the events that it portrays, “Queen of Chess” is unpretentious in a way that other chess films struggle to capture. Shaky and blurry footage of Judit, Susan and Sofia at their competitions lends itself to a more intimate portrait of the game. Viewers see the Polgár sisters at their realest with both triumphs and losses, including a moment of regret that Judit has when she loses a game after not calling out Kasparov for a move that was technically cheating. 

Even with explicit Jewishness hidden from view, the deep resilience that each of these young women displays in navigating the male-dominated chess world speaks to a deeper culture of learning to thrive under even the harshest of conditions that is deeply ingrained in global Jewish histories. 

Despite my wishes for more direct representations of Judaism on screen, I ultimately finished the documentary feeling empowered. The grit demonstrated by the extraordinary Jewish women in this documentary is uplifting and inspiring, and makes it well worth the watch.