Disillusioned and exhausted after a decade of battling in the Crusades, a knight (Max von Sydow, in one of many collaborations with Bergman) encounters Death (Bengt Ekerot) on a desolate beach and challenges him to a fateful game of chess. Endlessly studied, imitated, even parodied—such as in Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)—The Seventh Seal, Bergman’s stunning allegory of the human search for meaning, was one of the benchmark foreign imports of America’s 1950s art-house heyday, and its success ushered in a new era of moviegoing.

Read more about Bergman’s work in a blog post from JBFC Senior Programmer Andrew Jupin.