Dangerous Moves is a 1984 French-language film about chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

, directed by Richard Dembo

Richard Dembo

Richard Dembo was a French director and screenwriter.Dembo achieved worldwide recoginition with his first film: La diagonale du fou. For the direction of this film Dembo received an Oscar in 1984 for best foreign film, as well as other numerous awards...

 and starring Michel Piccoli and Alexandre Arbatt. Its original French title is La diagonale du fou ("The Fool's Diagonal", referring to the chess piece

Chess piece

Chess pieces or chessmen are the pieces deployed on a chessboard to play the game of chess. The pieces vary in abilities, giving them different values in the game...

 called the bishop

Bishop (chess)

A bishop is a piece in the board game of chess. Each player begins the game with two bishops. One starts between the king's knight and the king, the other between the queen's knight and the queen...

 in English but the fool in French). The film was a co-production between companies in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Switzerland

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. It tells the story of two very different men competing in the World Chess Championship Games. One is a 52-year-old Soviet Jew who holds the title, and the other is a 35-year-old genius who defected to the West several years earlier.

Awards

The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...

 in 1984; it was submitted by the Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

 government, and gave that nation its first Oscar win. It also won the Prix Louis Delluc, the Prix de l'Académide du Cinéma and the César Award for Best Debut

César Award for Best Debut

The César Award for Best Debut was an award given out at the annual César Awards between 1982 and 1999...

.

Cast and roles include

• Michel Piccoli - Akiva Liebskind
• Alexandre Arbatt - Pavius Fromm
• Liv Ullmann
  Liv Ullmann
  Liv Johanne Ullmann is a Norwegian actress and film director, as well as one of the "muses" of the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman...
  
   - Marina Fromm
• Leslie Caron
  Leslie Caron
  Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
  
   - Henia Liebskind
• Wojciech Pszoniak
  Wojciech Pszoniak
  Wojciech Pszoniak , is a Polish film and theater actor.Pszoniak gained international visibility following Andrzej Wajda's 1975 film The Promised Land, in which he played Moritz, one of the three main characters....
  
   - Felton, Fromm's team
• Jean-Hugues Anglade
  Jean-Hugues Anglade
  Jean-Hugues Anglade is a French actor, film director and screenwriter, best known for his roles as Eric in Killing Zoe, Zorg in Betty Blue and Marco, the boyfriend of Nikita, in Nikita....
  
   - Miller, Fromm's team
• Daniel Olbrychski
  Daniel Olbrychski
  Daniel Olbrychski is a Polish actor best known for leading roles in several Andrzej Wajda movies and also known for playing the Russian defector and spymaster Vassily Orlov, alongside Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie in the movie Salt....
  
   - Tac-Tac, Liebskind's friend
• Hubert Saint-Macary
  Hubert Saint-Macary
  Hubert Saint-Macary is a French actor, brother of Xavier Saint-Macary.-Selected filmography:* Un étrange voyage * Mr. and Mrs...
  
   - Foldes
• Michel Aumont - Kerossian, Liebskind's friend
• Pierre Michaël - Yachvili
• Serge Avedikian
  Serge Avedikian
  Serge Avedikian , sometimes credited as Serje Avetikian, is an Armenian-French film and theatre actor, director, writer and producer, winner of Cannes Festival prize.-Early life:...
  
   - Fadenko
• Pierre Vial - Anton Heller
• Bernhard Wicki - Puhl
• Jacques Boudet
  Jacques Boudet
  Jacques Boudet is a French stage and screen actor. He had great success in the 1980s with his appearance in Exercises in Style, and is featured in the film The Names of Love ....
  
   - Stuffli
• Benoît Régent
  Benoît Régent
  Benoît Régent was a French motion-picture actor.He was born in Nantes. He died in Zürich, Switzerland.-Filmography:*Noir comme le souvenir *...à la campagne *En mai, fais ce qu'il te plaît...
  
  - Barabal