One of Satyajit Ray’s most beloved films, The Chess Players is an elegant dissection of colonialism. Ray interweaves two parallel stories: the British-owned East India Company’s maneuverings to remove the king of Oudh, and the chess games of two Lucknow noblemen, oblivious to both domestic and national cataclysms around them. Set on the cusp of the 1857 rebellion by the Indian people against their British colonizers, The Chess Players is one of Ray’s most visually dazzling portraits of the fateful games people play. The film also stars Richard Attenborough, with narration by Amitabh Bachchan.