Anya Taylor-Joy makes chess her bitch in The Queen’s Gambit trailer

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Move over, Bobby Fisher, because chess legend Beth Harmon is about to make some moves on Netflix.

The streamer on Thursday released a trailer for its limited series drama THE QUEEN'S GAMBIT, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a pill-popping prodigy who's mastered the game chess. Based on the novel by Walter Tevis, THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT is a coming-of-age story that explores the true cost of genius. Abandoned and entrusted to a Kentucky orphanage in the late 1950s, a young Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy)  discovers an astonishing talent for chess while developing an addiction to tranquilizers provided by the state as a sedative for the children. Haunted by her personal demons and fueled by a cocktail of narcotics and obsession, Beth transforms into an impressively skilled and glamorous outcast while determined to conquer the traditional boundaries established in the male-dominated world of competitive chess.

The stylish new trailer gives us a look at Harmon's rise from young and unsuspecting chess master to a woman who's tripped down the rabbit hole of her own mind and can still bring down the best in the game. It's trippy, intriguing, and is definitely pulling me in.

The series is directed and co-written by two-time Academy Award nominee Scott Frank and executive produced by Frank, William Horberg, and Allan Scott, who also co-created the series. Joining Taylor-Joy for the psychedelic drama are Marielle Heller, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Moses Ingram, Harry Melling, and Bill Camp.

The seven-episode limited series premieres on Friday, October 23.