In celebration of the life of Max von Sydow, the Criterion Channel presents a series of highlights from his legendary career. One of the greatest actors of the twentieth century, von Sydow is best known for his long creative partnership with director Ingmar Bergman, whose psychologically probing dramas—including their most famous collaboration, THE SEVENTH SEAL—gave the actor freedom to bare his soul and showcase his unfailingly commanding screen presence. In addition to the string of masterpieces he made with the Swedish auteur, von Sydow embodied a wide range of characters in films by art-house titans such as Jan Troell, Lars von Trier, and Wim Wenders, leaving behind a body of work that spans more than six decades and a dozen different countries.
Bergman scholar Peter Cowie on the late Max von Sydow, one of the greatest actors of all time.
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1957 • Sweden
Starring Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin
Traveling to accept an honorary degree, Professor Isak Borg—masterfully played by the veteran filmmaker and actor Victor Sjöström—is forced to face his past, come to terms with his faults, and make...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1957 • Sweden
Starring Max von Sydow, Inga Landgré, Gunnar Björnstrand
Returning exhausted from the Crusades to find medieval Sweden gripped by the Plague, a knight (Max von Sydow) suddenly comes face-to-face with the hooded figure of Death, and challenges him to a g...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1958 • Sweden
Starring Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand
With THE MAGICIAN, an engaging, brilliantly conceived tale of chicanery that doubles as a symbolic portrait of the artist as a deceiver, Ingmar Bergman proved himself to be one of cinema’s premier illusionists....
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1958 • Sweden
Starring Ingrid Thulin, Eva Dahlbeck, Bibi Andersson
At the height of his international acclaim, Ingmar Bergman followed two meditations on death, THE SEVENTH SEAL and WILD STRAWBERRIES, with an examination of the mystery and pain of birth. This intimat...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1960 • Sweden
Starring Max von Sydow, Birgitta Valberg, Gunnel Lindblom
Winner of the Academy Award for best foreign-language film, Ingmar Bergman’s THE VIRGIN SPRING is a harrowing tale of faith, revenge, and savagery in medieval Sweden. With austere simplicity, the...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1961 • Sweden
Starring Harriet Andersson, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand
While vacationing on a remote island retreat, a family finds its fragile ties tested when daughter Karin (an astonishing Harriet Andersson) discovers her father (Gunnar Björnstrand) has been ...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1963 • Sweden
Starring Gunnar Björnstrand, Ingrid Thulin, Max von Sydow
“God, why hast thou forsaken me?” With WINTER LIGHT, Ingmar Bergman explores the search for redemption in a meaningless existence. Small-town pastor Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Björnstrand) performs h...
Directed by Jan Troell • 1965 • Sweden
In 1965, director Jan Troell took part in the film 4 X 4, which comprises four shorts, each from a different Nordic country. Troell’s Swedish entry, INTERLUDE IN THE MARSHLAND, starring Max von Sydow and produced and cowritten by Bengt Forslund, is based on...
Directed by Jan Troell • 1966 • Sweden
Starring Eddie Axberg, Ulla Sjöblom, Gunnar Björnstrand
This mesmerizing debut by the great Swedish director Jan Troell is an epic bildungsroman and a multilayered representation of early twentieth-century Sweden. Based on a series of autobiographical novel...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1968 • Sweden
The strangest and most disturbing of the films Ingmar Bergman shot on the island of Fårö, HOUR OF THE WOLF stars Max von Sydow as a haunted painter living in voluntary exile with his wife (Liv Ullmann). When the couple are invited to a nearby castle f...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1968 • Sweden
Starring Liv Ullmann, Max von Sydow
Directed by Ingmar Bergman, SHAME (SKAMMEN) is at once an examination of the violent legacy of World War II and a scathing response to the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam. Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann star as m...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1969 • Sweden
When Andreas (Max von Sydow) meets Anna (Liv Ullmann) he is a man struggling with the collapse of both his marriage and his emotional state. Subsequently, Anna is grieving the recent loss of her husband and son, and the two enter into a relationship. As...
Directed by Ingmar Bergman • 1971 • Sweden
Starring Elliott Gould, Bibi Andersson, Max von Sydow
With his first English-language film, a critical and box-office disaster, Ingmar Bergman delivered a compelling portrait of conflicting desires. In THE TOUCH, a chance encounter between seemingly con...
Directed by Lars von Trier • 1991 • Spain, Denmark, Sweden, France, Germany, Switzerland
Starring Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Udo Kier
“You will now listen to my voice . . . On the count of ten you will be in Europa . . .” So begins Max von Sydow’s opening narration to Lars von Trier’s hypno...
Directed by Wim Wenders • 1991 • Germany, France, Australia
Starring William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Sam Neill
Conceived as the ultimate road movie, this decades-in-the-making science-fiction epic from Wim Wenders follows the restless Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin) across continents as she...
