PG, 92mins

Ingmar Bergman’s black and white masterpiece The Seventh Seal has matured like a great wine over 50 years. The brutal reality of life in the Middle Ages provides the unnerving backdrop to this quest to discover if God exists. Max von Sydow is a battle-weary knight who returns from the crusades to find his country riddled with plague and terrorised by witchhunts. His journey home is cut short by the black-cloaked figure of Death. His time has come. But the knight wins a reprieve by challenging Death to a game of chess.

The journey limps on through villages gripped by disease and religious confusion. There are harrowing encounters with holy flagellants mutilating their bodies. A young girl is tied to a stake and planted on top of a bonfire. Death reveals nothing of God or an afterlife. Von Sydow’s heroic knight remains cool and stoical. His dwindling faith in a divine power is profoundly affecting.

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