Det Sjunde Inseglet (1957)

Trailer

We must make an idol of our fear, and call it god.
So basically: After coming home from a Crusade, a Knight and his squire find that the plague has ravished the coast of Sweden. The Knight has doubts about life, death, and God when he plays a game of chess with Death, to stall for his life. The squire has a wholly different look on life and just wants to have a good time. They meet two actors, married and with a little boy, who travel with them to the Knight's house.

I had watched this movie sitting in the hall at school with a friend. Because of that, I wasn't really paying attention to the story, but the images stayed with me. Ingmar Bergman is one of finest directors around and he shoots stunning films. Honestly, before seeing this again, I couldn't remember much of what went on (I mean, I remembered the basic plot), but I could always call up a myriad of scenes and remember how beautiful they are. Certainly, this is one of the best films of all time, aesthetically. Now you're probably thinking, she's raving about how pretty it is, so the actual story, characters, dialogue mustn't be very good. How wrong you are. The premise itself isn't very original - how people deal with life/death and their faith - but Bergman does it so wonderfully you forget about that. Everything comes together in this film to create something worth watching.

This movie defs deserves to be on the list - probably higher.

Ziggi seal of approval!