The Best Ingmar Bergman Movies Ranked And Where to Watch them

If you're looking for the best Ingmar Bergman movies of all time then here is a definitive list. We rank every movie directed by Ingmar Bergman based on their popularity score from IMDB from best to worst. Click on the ‘see more’ button to find out where to watch them in Australia covering all streaming services. In March 2024 there are 33 films in this list.

List of the Best Movies Directed by Ingmar Bergman In Order of Popularity

  1. Persona
  2. Fanny and Alexander
  3. The Seventh Seal
  4. Wild Strawberries
  5. Autumn Sonata
  6. The Virgin Spring
  7. Cries and Whispers
  8. Winter Light
  9. Through a Glass Darkly
  10. The Silence
  11. Smiles of a Summer Night
  12. The Passion of Anna
  13. The Magician
  14. Summer with Monika
  15. Hour of the Wolf
  16. The Magic Flute
  17. Sawdust and Tinsel
  18. Brink of Life
  19. From the Life of the Marionettes
  20. To Joy
  21. After the Rehearsal
  22. The Devil's Eye
  23. A Lesson in Love
  24. Waiting Women
  25. The Rite
  26. Dreams
  27. Fårö Document 1979
  28. A Ship to India
  29. Crisis
  30. The Touch
  31. The Touch
  32. All These Women
  33. Rabies

Stream the top 33 Movies directed by Ingmar Bergman

1. Persona

Rated: Not Rated

8.1/10

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer. The time they spend together only strengthens the crushing realization that one does not exist.

2. Fanny and Alexander

Rated: R

8.1/10

As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situation gradually grows worse as the bishop becomes more controlling, but dedicated relatives make a valiant attempt to aid Emilie, Fanny and Alexander.

3. The Seventh Seal

Rated: Not Rated

8.1/10

When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.

4. Wild Strawberries

Rated: Not Rated

8.1/10

Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.

5. Autumn Sonata

Rated: PG

8.1/10

After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.

6. The Virgin Spring

Rated: Not Rated

8.1/10

Devout Christians Töre and Märeta send their only daughter, the virginal Karin, and their foster daughter, the unrepentant Ingeri, to deliver candles to a distant church. On their way through the woods, the girls encounter a group of savage goat herders who brutally rape and murder Karin as Ingeri remains hidden. When the killers unwittingly seek refuge in the farmhouse of Töre and Märeta, Töre plots a fitting revenge.

7. Cries and Whispers

Rated: M

8/10

As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so deeply immersed in their own psychic pains that they can't offer her the support she needs. Maria is wracked with guilt at her husband's attempted suicide, caused by his discovery of her extramarital affair. The self-loathing, suicidal Karin seems to regard her sister with revulsion. Only Anna, the deeply religious maid who lost her young child, seems able to offer Agnes solace and empathy.

8. Winter Light

Rated: Not Rated

8/10

A Swedish pastor fails a loving woman, a suicidal fisherman and God.

9. Through a Glass Darkly

Rated: Not Rated

7.9/10

Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger brother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.

10. The Silence

Rated: M

7.8/10

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

11. Smiles of a Summer Night

Rated: Not Rated

7.7/10

Early in the 20th century, middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman and his young wife, Anne, have still not consummated their marriage, while Fredrik's son finds himself increasingly attracted to his new stepmother. To make matters worse, Fredrik's old flame Desiree makes a public bet that she can seduce him at a romantic weekend retreat where four couples convene, swapping partners and pairing off in unexpected ways.

12. The Passion of Anna

Rated: R

7.6/10

Andreas, a man struggling with the recent demise of his marriage and his own emotional isolation, befriends a married couple also in the midst of psychological turmoil. In turn he meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface. Andreas and Anna pursue a love affair, but he is unable to overcome his feelings of deep humiliation and remains disconnected. Meanwhile, the island community is victimized by an unknown person committing acts of animal cruelty.

13. The Magician

Rated: M

7.6/10

When 'Vogler's Magnetic Health Theater' comes to town, there's bound to be a spectacle. Reading reports of a variety of supernatural disturbances at Vogler's prior performances abroad, the leading townspeople (including the police chief and medical examiner) request that their troupe provide them a sample of their act, before allowing them public audiences. The scientific-minded disbelievers try to expose them as charlatans, but Vogler and his crew prove too clever for them.

14. Summer with Monika

Rated: R

7.5/10

Monika from Stockholm falls in love with Harry, a young man on holiday. When she becomes pregnant they are forced into a marriage, which begins to fall apart soon after they take up residence in a cramped little flat.

15. Hour of the Wolf

Rated: Not Rated

7.5/10

An artist in crisis is haunted by nightmares from the past on a windy island. Between midnight and dawn, he tells his wife about his most painful memories.

16. The Magic Flute

Rated: G

7.5/10

The Queen of the Night enlists a handsome prince named Tamino to rescue her beautiful kidnapped daughter, Princess Pamina, in this screen adaptation of the beloved Mozart opera. Aided by the lovelorn bird hunter Papageno and a magical flute that holds the power to change the hearts of men, young Tamino embarks on a quest for true love, leading to the evil Sarastro's temple where Pamina is held captive.

17. Sawdust and Tinsel

Rated: Not Rated

7.4/10

The complicated relationships between a circus ringmaster, his estranged wife and his lover.

18. Brink of Life

Rated: Not Rated

7.3/10

Set in a hospital where three women meet either because they have been through an abortion or are due to give birth.

19. From the Life of the Marionettes

Rated: R

7.2/10

Made during Bergman's tax-related exile in Germany, the film continues the story of Katarina and Peter Egermann, the feuding, childless, professional couple who appear in one episode of "Scenes From A Marriage." After Peter perpetrates a horrendous crime in its first scene, the rest of the film consists of a non-linear examination of his motivations, incorporating a police psychological investigation, scenes from the Egermanns' married life, and dream sequences.

20. To Joy

Rated: Not Rated

7.2/10

After discovering that his wife has been killed in an accident, Stig looks back on their relationship, beginning with when he and Marta were starting out as violinists together in an orchestra overseen by conductor Sonderby.

21. After the Rehearsal

Rated: R

7.1/10

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Stindberg's "A Dream Play." She talks of her hatred for her mother, now dead, an alcoholic actress, who was Vogler's star and lover. Vogler falls into a reverie, remembering a day Anna's mother, Rakel, late in life, came after rehearsal to beg him to come to her apartment. He awakes and Anna reveals the reason she has returned: she jolts him into an emotional response, rare for him, and the feelings of a young woman and an older man play out.

22. The Devil's Eye

Rated: M

7.1/10

The devil has a stye in his eye, caused by the purity of a vicar's daughter. To get rid of it, he sends Don Juan up from hell to seduce the 20 year old Britt-Marie and to rob her of her virginity and her belief in love. She however can resist him and things get even turned around when Don Juan falls in love with her. The fact that he feels love for the first time now, makes him even less attractive to her and Don Juan returns to hell.

23. A Lesson in Love

Rated: Not Rated

7.0/10

After 15 years of marriage, David and Marianne have grown apart. David has had an affair with a patient of his and Marianne has got herself involved with her former lover Carl-Adam, who's also David's best friend. When she travels to Copenhagen to meet Carl-Adam, David takes the same train as she does, making it look coincidental. Spending time together remembering their past and talking about their future, they come to understand each other again, which leads to a reconciliation.

24. Waiting Women

Rated: Not Rated

7.0/10

Rakel, Marta, Karin and Annette are married to four brothers. While waiting in a summer cottage for their husbands to come home, they tell each other stories about their marriages. Rakel tells about the time she had an affair and confronted her husband with it. Marta's story is about how she at first refused to marry and had her child by herself. Karin tells about what happened when one time she and her husband got stuck in an elevator together. While the women tell their stories, Marta's younger sister Maj is planning to elope.

25. The Rite

Rated: M

7/10

A judge in an unnamed country interviews three actors, together and singly, provoking them while investigating a pornographic performance for which they may face a fine. Their relationships are complicated: Sebastian, volatile, a heavy drinker, in debt, guilty of killing his former partner, is having an affair with that man's widow. She is Thea, high strung, prone to fits, and seemingly fragile, currently married to Sebastian's new partner, Hans. Hans is the troupe leader, wealthy, self-contained, and growing tired. The judge plays on the trio's insecurities, but when they finally, in a private session with him, perform the masque called The Rite, they may have their revenge.

26. Dreams

Rated: M

7/10

Susanne is a woman in her mid-30s and the owner of a modeling agency in Stockholm. She accompanies her prize model, Doris, on a trip to Gothenburg so that Doris can be photographed. While traveling, both women seek out romance, Susanne with a married lover and Doris with an older gentleman who sees his deceased wife in the young model. The two women struggle to understand their romantic motivations and in the process form an unlikely friendship.

27. Fårö Document 1979

Rated: Not Rated

6.7/10

In 1969 he made, with Sven Nykvist as cinematographer, The Fårö Document, a film that ended with a rather pessimist view of the island’s future. One of the scenes in the film is of a school-bus and its young passengers. To these and to the realities ten years later Bergman returns in the long documentary Fårö Document 1979.

28. A Ship to India

Rated: Not Rated

6.4/10

Sailor Johannes Blom returns to his home port, after seven years at sea, to find that Sally, the girl he has been thinking of while away, is completely despondent. Seven years earlier, obstreperous Alexander Blom, brings his mistress Sally to live with him, his wife Alice, son Johannes, and crew, aboard the salvage boat he captains. Amidst all the tensions on the small boat, Johannes and Sally fall in love with each other.

29. Crisis

Rated: Not Rated

6.4/10

A small-town piano teacher is shocked by the arrival of her foster daughter's real mother, whose young lover soon follows and causes further disruption.

30. The Touch

Rated: M

6.3/10

A seemingly happy Swedish housewife and mother begins an adulterous affair with a foreign archaeologist who is working near her home.

31. The Touch

Rated: R

6.2/10

A troubled young woman (Kristia Knowles) makes positive changes while visiting a church shelter.

32. All These Women

Rated: Not Rated

5.4/10

The pretentious critic Cornelius is writing a biography on a famous cellist and to do some research he goes to stay in his house for a few days. He doesn't manage to get an interview with the man, but by talking to all the women who live with him, he comes to learn a lot about the musician's private life none the less. Cornelius then decides to use this information and tries to blackmail the cellist into performing a composition that he, Cornelius, has written. Written by Leon Wolters

33. Rabies

Rated: N/A

/10

A relay race of "scenes from human life". Depicts the human characters inferior traits are spreading like a disease: the person who gets rejected / humiliated / oppressed takes it out on someone else.