The 11 best movies of iconic filmmaker Ingmar Bergman

Bergman had already directed ten films when "Secrets of Women" hit the movie theaters: four women waiting for their husbands tell each other about their relationships. In flashbacks and with various aesthetic concepts, the Swede gave audiences insights into his view of the world. Morality and loyalty, sadness and joie de vivre are themes the director was to revisit later again and again.

Set in a circus, Bergman's "Sawdust and Tinsel" rather gloomily tells of torments of the soul, love affairs and erotic escapades. The circus ring reflecting people's emotions once again made this early work a mirror of Bergman's soul. The rather pessimistic film was no box office hit, but rather a financial flop.

After the failure of "Smiles of a Summer Night", Bergman shot some lighter films that addressed the director's classical themes in a more comic way. "Smiles of a Summer Night," a social comedy set around the turn of the century before last, was a great success at the box office, but also in Cannes, where the film received a special prize for "poetic humor."

"The Seventh Seal" was Bergman's final breakthrough, making him a respected director all over the world. The film is an allegory with a catchy theme: the individual, his "eternal search for God and death as the only security," Bergman said about this film set in the late Middle Ages, in which "Death" appeared in the flesh.

1957 was a triumphant year for the tireless director, who also worked in the theatre. After "The Seventh Seal," Bergman delivered a second masterpiece. In "Wild Strawberries," the Swede again reflected his life onto the screen, while also looking to the future: Victor Sjostrom as Professor Isak Borg (here with Ingrid Thulin) was a vision of his own self as an old man.

Set in medieval Sweden, "The Virgin Spring" is another film about guilt, faith, revenge and atonement. The drama received an Oscar in the category "Best Foreign Language Film" – the director was to win Oscars twice more for later films. This movie was banned in the then West German state of Bavaria because of what was, at the time, a relatively drastically staged rape scene.

"The Silence" finally branded Ingmar Bergman a "scandal director" once and for all. Two sisters and one of the women's ten-year-old son are stranded in a hotel in a city whose language they do not understand. Explicit sex scenes and the combination of sexuality and religion came as a shock to many moviegoers in the early 1960s. The drama film was censored and banned many times.

In "Persona," Bergman focused on the medium cinema. Again, everything revolves around two women, their relationship to each other, and with the outside world. Sexuality and faith are at the center of this story, too, in a film that is formally more experimental and gave fundamental thought to art and cinema.

Bergman again remained true to himself with this film: a deep look into the female psyche, grand emotions, brilliant actors, all in the form of a chamber play. "The film starts like Chekhov's "Three Sisters," ends like "The Cherry Orchard," with a lot of Strindberg in between," according to French director Francois Truffaut. "Cries and Whispers" was also a success at the box offices.

This glimpse behind the facade of a marriage, the reality behind appearances, is the epitome of his career for Bergman connoisseurs. "Scenes from a Marriage" is about the alienation of a couple with two children who are introduced in a magazine home story as supposedly happy. Initially a six-part TV mini series shot with a small budget, the story was shortened for the big screen.

This period drama was also produced in two versions, as a feature film and a longer TV film. Poetic, entertaining and humorous, at times serious and full of bitterness, Bergman looked back on his childhood and family home in a semi-autobiographical story. "Fanny and Alexander" was once again a great cinematic masterpiece by the Swedish director who was in his mid-60s at the time.