In turn-of-the-century Sweden, four men and four women attempt to navigate the laws of attraction.

Victor Sjöström is magnificent as the crabby professor taking a nostalgic road trip with his daughter-in-law.

Ingmar Bergman’s allegory about a medieval knight (Max von Sydow) who plays chess with Death (a white-faced, shrouded figure played by Bengt Ekerot) was a landmark of arthouse cinema in the late 1950s.

In the first of a series of legendary performances for Bergman, Liv Ullmann plays a stage actor who has inexplicably gone mute; an equally mesmerizing Bibi Andersson is the garrulous young nurse caring for her in a remote island cottage.

Sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) have returned to their family’s rural manor home to tend to their dying sibling Agnes (Harriet Andersson).