Chess-Themed Animated Short 'War Is Over' Wins Oscar Award

Forget Barbie, Oppenheimer or Poor Things. The 96th Academy Awards also marked a triumph for "War Is Over!" becoming the second chess-themed winner of the 'Best Animated Short Film' award.

Drawing inspiration from the iconic peace anthem 'Happy Xmas! War Is Over!' by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, filmmakers Dave Mullins and Brad Booker from ElectroLeague, along with co-writer and producer Sean Ono Lennon, secured their first Academy Award on Sunday.

Curiously enough, the award was presented by Anya 'Beth Harmon' Taylor-Joy, known from Netflix' hit-series The Queen's Gambit, and Avengers star Chris Hemsworth.

Sometimes the best stories can be told with the help of a chessboard. The game is a key element in "War Is Over", and the 11-minute indie flick revolves around two soldiers, Winston and Abel, during an alternate reality of World War I who find themselves on opposing sides play a joyful game. Their unlikely camaraderie unfolds through the game, where they play correspondence chess communicating the moves via messages carried by a messenger pigeon. 

In the short, the cerebral clash of chess is used as a metaphor for humanizing the soldiers and as a way of communication, according to Indiewire.

"After a couple of meetings, Mullins wrote the script in one night, focusing on the two chess players, Winston and Abel, and Icarus, the pigeon. As they worked on the story, the Ukraine war got into full gear and made the film even more important to them," according to the site.

Renowned chess historian Edward Winter's Chess Notes revealed his pivotal role as a consultant for the film's chess scenes, using a game with reversed colors between Efim Bogoljubov and AH Trott in Southsea,1950 to illustrate the unusual theme of responding to a check with a checkmate in the next move.

Ono, now 91 years old, has long been known as a chess enthusiast, playing chess with her late husband in the music video for 'Don't Count The Waves' from 1972.

She also designed “Play It By Trust”, a chess set where all the pieces are white resulting in the players having to collaborate in order to remember where they placed the pieces, showing off her clear anti-war stance.

Their son Sean revealed that he also plays chess himself. "Chess is a universal language," he remarked in an interview.

Yoko Ono and John Lennon playing Yoko’s artwork White Chess Set, 1966
From the film Imagine, 1971, Tittenhurst Park, Ascot, England, 1971. pic.twitter.com/U3WynOr3e5

— Yoko Ono (@yokoono) October 23, 2023

"War Is Over!" follows in the footsteps of Pixar's Geri's Game which also won an Oscar for Best Animated Short in 1998. The 5-minute flick sees an aging codger playing a daylong game of chess against himself in the park.

In 1985 the Drama/Thriller Dangerous Moves also won for Best Foreign Film, with a Cold War story around a World Chess Championship match.

If you are looking for other chess-themed movies, you may want to check out our 7 Chess Movies You Do Not Want To Miss.

War Is Over! is unfortunately not yet available for streaming. Chess.com will update the article once it becomes available.