"Ingmar Bergman - Four Masterworks"
Criterion
$99.95
#7. Ingmar Bergman: Four Masterworks
Bergman, who died this July at 89, was once widely considered cinema's greatest writer-director. Today he is known mainly as that Swedish guy Woody Allen likes. Here's the most concise chance to see what all the hubbub was about. Criterion has packaged a Bergman quartet from the '50s: the three very different films that made his reputation — the rollicking, rueful comedy Smiles of a Summer Night, the medieval passion play The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, a poignant evocation of aging — and his first Oscar-winner, The Virgin Spring. If the ambition and acuity in these four films don't make you a Bergman convert, the sight of beautiful actresses pouring out their hearts and souls should do the trick.