King Richard

King Richard

The story of how Richard Williams served as a coach to his daughters Venus and Serena, who will soon become two of the most legendary tennis players in history.

  • Released: 2021-11-18
  • Runtime: 138 minutes
  • Genre: Drama, History
  • Stars: Will Smith, Demi Singleton, Saniyya Sidney, Aunjanue Ellis, Jon Bernthal, Tony Goldwyn, Susie Abromeit, Dylan McDermott, Judith Chapman, Katrina Begin, Erin Cummings, Andy Bean, Kevin Dunn, Craig Tate, Calvin Clausell Jr., Mikayla LaShae Bartholomew, Daniele Lawson, Layla Crawford, Erika Ringor, Noah Bean, Josiah Cross, Vaughn W. Hebron, Jimmy Walker Jr., Brad Greenquist, Johnno Wilson, Robert Nuscher, Christopher Wallinger, Chase Del Rey, Connie Ventress, Vivienne Bersin, Andy Hoff, Carrie Gibson, Doug Simpson, Brandon Morales, Wil J. Jackson, Erica Shaffer, Matt Kirkwood, Chet Grissom, Alden Sherrill, Eman Esfandi, Jessica Wacnik, Jonathan Bray, Robert Walker Jeffery, Rich Sommer, Kaitlyn Christian, Geoff Nathanson, Marcela Zacarias, Jake Jensen, Chris Pentzell, Sophia Sanders, Mia Jovic, Iva Jovic, Michael Andrew Baker, Tom Holmes, Kamea Medora, Tom Degnan, Virginia Schneider, Jeff Cohn, Adam Cropper, Danya LaBelle, Rod Sweitzer, George Ketsios, Valerie Davidson, Christian Yeung, Teri Cohn, Hannah Barefoot, Mel Fair, Holly Haggerty, Mary Pascoe, Albert Ton, Ebboney Wilson, Hailey Winslow, Chris Wolfe, Gunner Wright, Tory N. Thompson, Sean Berube, Sean Fabian Billings, Sophia Bui, Kika Cicmanec, John Dinan, Diana Dray, Mathew Trent Hunnicutt, Jeni Jones, Trent Longo, Johnny Mansbach, Katie McCabe, Aryn Nelson, Tristan Nokes, Dan Sachoff, Gabi Stewart
  • Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
 Comments
  • pinkcloudsday - 10 March 2024
    Meh
    Will Smith's last movie before his lovely wife prompted him to throw away his career. I say that because she looked at him at the Academy awards expecting him to do something and he acted like an idiot instead of divorcing her like he should of. And yes I'm mad because Will Smith was a great actor and He hurt his career over an obnoxious, untalented loser named Chris Rock and a selfish manipulative wife. But anyway, back to the review. Will Smith breaks away from his men in black character and shows he is able to be quite diversified. The soundtrack is quite bad though. I will never get into that James Brown vibe. I found Smith's character to be increasingly obnoxious. The movie should have been about a father's drive and ambition to help his children succeed but instead it was about a fathers stubbornness and cockiness Which was over emphasized.
  • puskullu_moruk - 11 December 2023
    A wonderful biography film
    A wonderful biography film that tells the story of sisters Serena Williams and Venus Williams, whose careers were planned before they were born and who have now risen to the status of legendary tennis players, and their father, who played the biggest role in achieving this status.

    A story that should be an inspiration to everyone about perseverance, stubbornness, faith and being aware of the world you live in and writing your own destiny.

    King richard is such a man that he knows what the black ghettos he lives in are. He is aware that if his daughters grow up here, they will either fall into drug addiction or run away with a snob as a teenager and spend their lives at home, giving birth to children. He makes a plan so that in the future his daughters will live a better life than he and his predecessors, and he keeps it alive stubbornly and persistently.

    While watching it, it is hard not to envy this man's ambition and his firm adherence to his dreams. It even made me say "I wish I could go back 30 years and do what this man can do".

    The duration is short for a biography, so we do not know the past and future of neither the girls nor their family. The focus is on the girls' path to becoming professionals. Even if it was 4 hours, I would watch it.
  • fredrikgunerius - 4 August 2023
    Retribution and ambition - and some tennis
    With a slight pose and quite a bit of panache, Will Smith plays Richard Williams, father of tennis greats Serena and Venus, in this biopic written by Zach Baylin and directed by Reinaldo Marcus Green (Monsters and Men, Joe Bell). The unlikely success story of how Williams coached his daughters with unorthodox methods before they turned pro and went on to win abundances of Grand Slams is a fascinating one, even if King Richard feels like it's overemphasising dad's achievements over the daughters'. This is about his struggles and his demons, which is fair enough considering the title and the angle, but it would have been interesting to peek more inside the heads of the girls to find out at which point and how they broke free and took control themselves. Because make no mistake about it: The sports geniuses here are Serena and Venus, not King Richard. And although we may be inclined to feel him when he's standing up to local gangs or the segregation policies of his youth, this somehow feel like a parenthesis to the success of the Williams sisters, despite Green's best efforts of making it resounding. There's little doubt that the film is out to do more than tell the story of the tennis sisters. It's also hell bent on speaking out against injustice and right some wrongs. Which, of course, is the same old story - except that in this particular case, it ends up with the American Dream anyway. So you get the vapid aftertaste, which you perhaps wouldn't have gotten if the film had concentrated more on talent and sports than on retribution and ambition. Smith won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his effort, even if his work here is a couple of notches behind his best work, such as I Am Legend.
  • becky-92346 - 11 November 2022
    Absolutely gorgeous.
    King Richard (2021) follows Richards Williams as he coaches his daughters, Venus and Serena, at tennis. This is a biopic of the world famous tennis stars' rise to stardom. This was an emotional and heartfelt film. I didn't enjoy all of it but I have such a high level of respect for it!

    The cinematography was decent and the camerawork was pretty good. I liked the lighting, is was very natural but also made the film pleasant to look at. However, I was expecting something a bit more from the cinematography as it all felt quite safe.

    The sound design was utilised very well and added to the tense moments. I also really enjoyed the score, it was upbeat and really fit the mood in each scene. It was such a beautiful film and the score definitely contributed to this.

    Where this film excels is with it's performances and character development. Will Smith gave one of the best performances of his entire career as Richard, and Saniyya Sidney and Demi Singleton were equally as amazing as Venus and Serena. The characters had so much depth and felt so realistic, making this movie the perfect biopic.

    I didn't find the film constantly engaging, and it took a while for me to get into it, but luckily it had some very tense moments that hooked me. It built up this tension well and included a lot of emotional and heartfelt moments.

    Lastly, this film had such a beautiful message and tells it brilliantly through well written dialogue. Even as someone who isn't interested in tennis, I found this movie very inspiring, with a great story and a lot of heart.
  • sdimcg - 1 August 2022
    Accurate true story
    This movie is almost 100% accurate and the family endorsed the film as well as one family member being directly involved with the making of the film. For the poor reviews criticizing the story or events, it's real life not some made up Hollywood nonsense. Acting was good and messages throughout are even better. Very enjoyable both from a story telling aspect as well as the acting.
  • CodyGrubbs20 - 13 July 2022
    Could have been better
    This movie was over very good. The main plot to this movie was very interesting. They did go into detail about how everything happened. But when they were doing that, in some parts they would put to much detail into one scene, and not enough into the others. And that caused the film to lose some of its value.

    With all of that I do feel like this movie is a very good movie overall. It never felt like they were just dragging it on to add more time, it felt like the perfect amount of time.