Searching for Bobby Fischer is an acclaimed film of 1993 based on the life of Josh Waitzkin. It was written and directed by Steve Zaillian.

In this film, Josh Waitzkin's family discovers that he possesses a gift for chess and they seek to nurture it. They hire a strict instructor, Bruce Pandolfini (played by Ben Kingsley) who aims to teach the boy to be as aggressive as Bobby Fischer. The title of the film is a metaphor about the character's quest to adopt the ideal of Fischer and his determination to win at any price. However, the main conflict in the film arises when Josh refuses to adopt the misanthropic point of view of Fischer. Furthermore, Josh goes on to win on his own terms with the kind of gracious sportsmanship that Fischer rejects.

The title of the book and film alluded to the chess world's obsession with finding Fischer, the elusive chess player who vanished in the aftermath of his world champion title victory in Iceland in 1972. (He resurfaced back in Iceland last year, looking and sounding like the eccentric many suspected he was.) But the title also reflected the chess world's obsession with finding the next Bobby Fischer. It wanted another child genius who would flourish into a ferocious titan in the same way.  (Note: For years Waitzkin was the candidate most likely to fulfill the criteria: he was eight times national champion in America and a runner-up in the world under-18 championships. He also was named an international master at the age of 16.  Tellingly, though, he didn't crush opponents psychologically like Fischer had. Waitzkin was too sensitive and well-mannered for that.)

The film was nominated for Best Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall) at the 1993 Academy Awards, while it won the category at the American Society of Cinematographers the same year.

Fischer has cited the movie as just another example of a "Jewish conspiracy" to make money off him and sully his reputation at the same time, on the grounds that the film's producers used Fischer's fame to promote the movie yet paid him nothing for it.

Thanks to the film of his life, Josh Waitzkin's name is now inextricably linked with that of Bobby Fischer.

Josh Waitzkin's reflection on Bobby Fischer and the movie:

• "I never want to meet Bobby Fischer.  I have a lot of internal conflict with being associated with him. He's obviously a very sick individual in a lot of ways, but as a chess player he was the most lucid guy ever. I don't like that some people hear the title of the movie, but haven't seen it, and think I am Bobby Fischer."
   
• "He (Bobby Fischer) was obviously a genius and he's got quite a lot of madness tied into his genius, and they go hand in hand. When Fischer was a child it was chess, chess, chess, chess. Obviously you can say that was a little extreme, but you can't say chess caused all of that. What you can say is perhaps he got put into such an incredibly pressured external world - with the Cold War and the world championships - that he had a meltdown."

Trivia

• At the end of the movie, Josh is seen playing a tough opponent named Johnathan Poe in the final tournament. The character Johnathan Poe was not the actual name of Josh's opponent, however. His real name was Jeff Sarwer. Near the end of the game, where Josh offers Poe a draw, Poe rejects the draw and play continues. However, in the real game, Sarwer accepted the draw and Josh still went on to win the tournament by 1/2 of a point.
• Depicted to the left is the position of the game before Josh offers Poe the draw. The position did not occur in the real Waitzkin-Sarwer game; it was contrived specifically for the movie. The following moves are executed:
  
  1...gxf6 2.Bxf6 2...Bxf6 3.Nxf6 3...Rc6+ 4.Kf7 Rxf6+! 5.Kxf6 Nd7 6.Ke6 Nxe5 7.Kxe5 a5 8.h5 a4 9.h6 a3 10.h7 a2 11.h8=Q a1=Q+ 12Kf5 Qxh8 0-1
   
• One gripe from some chess players is the way Josh is seen offering the draw. In the film, he sticks his hand out and says he's offering a draw, waiting for Poe to shake his hand. The proper procedure is for a player to make a move first and then verbally offer a draw (without a handshake offer). Many children who have seen the movie mimic Josh's action.
• Another minor error in the film are the chess timers being set to 12:00 instead of the standard 6:00.
• Some famous chess players have brief cameos in the film. These include: Joel Benjamin, Roman Dzindzichashvili, and Kamran Shirazi.
• The girl ranked 82nd Josh plays in the final tournament is actually Katya Waitzkin, Josh Waitzkin's little sister.

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Searching for Bobby Fischer