Challengers

Challengers centres on Tashi Donaldson, a former tennis prodigy whose own career ended early through injury and who has since poured her energy into coaching her husband, Art. Under her guidance he has become a Grand Slam champion, but a run of defeats has left him short of belief. Her remedy is to enter him in a Challenger tournament, a modest event on the lower rungs of the professional tour, where he comes up against Patrick Zweig, once his closest friend and once Tashi's partner. The three are thrown back together, and the match becomes a test of ambition and of what the people around it are willing to risk.

Luca Guadagnino directed from a screenplay by Justin Kuritzkes, with Zendaya playing Tashi and producing alongside Guadagnino and Amy Pascal. Mike Faist plays Art and Josh O'Connor plays Patrick. The film runs 132 minutes and was made for around 55 million US dollars, taking roughly 94 million worldwide. Guadagnino's ninth feature in a run of thirteen, it followed Bones and All and preceded Queer.

Reception data place it firmly in favourable territory: on IMDb it holds 7 out of 10 across some 176,000 votes, on TMDB 6.9 out of 10 from a comparatively small 2,857 votes, while a critics' rating of 8 out of 10 from 381 reviews sits above both audience measures, indicating stronger approval among reviewers than among the wider public.