Ingmar Bergman movies: 25 greatest films, ranked worst to best, including ‘Cries and Whispers,’ ‘The Seventh Seal,’ ‘Persona’

Ingmar Bergman would've celebrated his 101st birthday on July 14, 2019. The Oscar-winning Swedish auteur helped bring international cinema into the American art houses with his stark, brooding dramas. But how many of his titles remain classics? In honor of his birthday, let's take a look back at 25 of his greatest films, ranked worst to best.

Born in 1918 in Uppsala, Sweden, Bergman started off as a screenwriter before moving into directing. His early hits "Summer with Monika" (1953), "Sawdust and Tinsel" (1953) and "Smiles of a Summer Night" (1955) helped make him a favorite amongst American audiences hungry for world cinema.

He hit his stride in 1957 with a pair of noteworthy titles: "Wild Strawberries" and "The Seventh Seal." Both films dealt with the absence of God and the inevitability of mortality -- the former concerning an aging professor (Victor Sjostrom) coming to terms with his life, the latter focusing on a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) playing a game of chess with Death (Bengt Ekerot) -- themes the director would explore throughout his work.

Bergman tickled the Academy's fancy multiple times, winning Oscars in Best Foreign Language Film for "The Virgin Spring" (1960), "Through a Glass Darkly" (1961) and "Fanny and Alexander" (1983). He earned bids for directing "Cries and Whispers" (1973), "Face to Face" (1976) and "Fanny and Alexander" and for writing "Wild Strawberries," "Through a Glass Darkly," "Cries and Whispers," "Autumn Sonata" (1978) and "Fanny and Alexander." "Cries and Whispers" also received a Best Picture nomination, a rarity for a foreign language title.

The director was notable was employing a stock company of actors, working multiple times with von Sydow, Liv Ullmann, Bibi Andersson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin and Harriet Andersson. Although he announced that "Fanny and Alexander" would be his last film, Bergman remained active in theater and television, returning to cinemas when he was 85-years-old with "Saraband" (2003). He died in 2007 at the age of 89.

Tour our photo gallery of Bergman's greatest films, including some of the titles listed above, as well as "Winter Light" (1963), "Persona" (1966), "Scenes from a Marriage" (1974) and more.

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4 thoughts on “Ingmar Bergman movies: 25 greatest films, ranked worst to best, including ‘Cries and Whispers,’ ‘The Seventh Seal,’ ‘Persona’”

  1. Let’s look at his vedic chart.

    He has a Taurus Ascendant, the sign that gives a lasting legacy for the ars (Gemini on the other hand, like Rami Malek, gives innovation in the arts).

    He is SUPERB in the arts since Mercury rules 2nd and the 5th and Saturn covering 9th and 10th (in short this combination of houses gives creativity with tangible resultus touching on life’s most pressing issues especialy on the nature of existence – 2nd is tangibility, 5th is creativity, 9th is dharma or the unrelentingness of time and truth and 10th is karma or the unrelentingness of we reap what we sow and time again, would make sure of that).

    Mercury is significator where matteriality and spirituality gets entangled and so his pictures always show we can never separate these two aspects of life and Saturn is the significator of karma, mysticism, punishment, weaknesses, loopholes and how we can overcome them by letting nature take its course, meaning place your faith in God and all would be well, but don’t try to beat fate with your own endeavour like Max von Sydow playing chess with the devil.

    This conjunction of planets also points to the use of the concept of post-modernism in our works, and in Bergman’s case, his films, because post-modernism is nothing more than telling a story various flashbacks and symbolisms.

    All his moksha (spiritual) houses (4th, 8th and 12th) Sun, Jupter and Mars are placed either in the 2nd house (which is 12th, meaning spiritual, from the 3rd of the arts which Mercury and Saturn sits as discussed above) or in the 5th house (which is 3rd from the 3rd meaning which is the house where our link with God is established).

    Coming from a country like Sweden who does not believe so much in God for the younger generation, Bergman belongs to a generation of yonder years gone by.

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