Swedish movie and theatre director, playwright, screenwriter. Although Ingmar Bergman was widely known as a film director, he also became one of the foreground figures of the modern Swedish theatre. Bergman's artistic career included stage performances, radio productions, feature films, and TV productions. In several books, from The Magic Lantern (1987) to Private Conversations (1996) Bergman explored his childhood, his relationship to his father, and the strained marriage of his parents.

"I want very much to tell, to talk about, the wholeness inside every human being. It's a strange thing that every human being has a sort of dignity or wholeness in him, and out of that develops relationships to other human beings, tensions, misunderstandings, tenderness, coming in contact, touching and being touched, the cutting off of a contact and what happens then. That's what is fascinating. I feel that I have come out into an enormous field, and I can now get started. I¨m very curious about the pictures waiting for me around the corner." (Ingmar Bergman Directs by John Simon, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974, pp. 29-30)

Ingmar Bergman was born in Uppsala, the son of Erik Bergman, a Lutheran minister and chaplain to the court of Sweden, and Karin Bergman (née Åkerblom), who came from a prosperous family. In 2011 Bergman's niece Veronica Ralston claimed in her book Kärleksbarnet och bortbytingen, that the director's real mother was Hedvig Sjöberg, with whom Erik had a relationship. Bergman was switched at birth with Karin's baby who had died. However, the DNA tests carried out on two stamps claimed to prove this were false: a lab technician's DNA had contaminated the samples.

Bergman was raised under strict discipline. Karin was a proud, strong-willed person, and the relationship between his parents became mutually destructive."Mother, You are my best friend," Bergman wrote to her years later, as a grown-up man. From his childhood pressures Bergman later drew material for his plays and films. Many of Bergman's works explored the father-god trauma, including the films Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Winter Light (1963).

At the age of 10 Bergman received a laterna magica as a toy. He made dolls for his puppet theater and saw in 1935 his first theater production, A Dream Play by August Strindberg. At the age of 16, he was sent to Germany as an exchange student, and placed with a pastor's family in Thüringe. "I was given a present by the family on my birthday, a photograph of Hitler. Hannes hung it above my bed so that 'I would always have the man before my eyes', so that I should learn to love him in the same way as Hannes and the Haid family loved him. I loved him too. For many years, I was on Hitler's side, delighted by his success and saddened by his defeats." (The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography by Ingmar Bergman, translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, New York: Viking, 1988, p. 123) In 1937, Bergman entered the University of Stockholm, where he studied literature and art.

After graduation, Bergman worked as a trainee-director at a Stockholm theater. During this period he published a few short stories and wrote a number of plays including Kaspers död (1942) and Jack among the Actors (1946). At the age of twenty-six Bergman became the youngest theatre manager in Europe at the Hälsingborg City Theatre in Sweden. He secured his position through a large number of impressive productions, especially classical plays. Bergman was manager of the Helsingborg city theatre (1944-46), director at Gothenburg city theatre (1946-49), at Malmö city theatre (1953-60) and at the Dramaten in Stockholm (1960-66), the last three years as manager.

Bergman made his debut in 1944 as a screenwriter to the Alf Sjöberg Hets (Frenzy). Fängelse (1949, The Devil's Wanton), shot in two-and-a-half weeks, was the first film Bergman both wrote and directed. Swedish critics referred Bergman as "the puberty crisis director" specializing in "delayed adolescence". The artistic breakthrough came with Gycklarnas afton (1953, Sawdust and Tinsel), which described an artist's life as despised and wasted. The background is a third class circus environment.

Summer with Monika (1953), starring Harriet Andersson, was a low-budget film made with a small group, a dozen or so technicians and actors. "There is scarcely a smile in this film, even though its major section is given over to the young lovers' long summer tryst in the Stockholm archipelago. . . . The film's creative energies are dedicated to capturing the instinctual Monika, part girl and part woman, more amoral than conscious, and ultimately destructive to herself and others. " (Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet by Marc Gervais, Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999, p. 37) Bergman has said that making Summer with Monika was a lot of fun. His long love affair with Andersson started during the shooting of the film on Ornö, an island in the southern part of the Stockholm archipelago. Stills from the film are featured in François Truffaut's The 400 Blows (1959). 

Bergman's first international success was Sommarnattens leende (1955, Smiles of the Summer Night). In the story, which begins realistically but has a kind of fairy tale ending, a country lawyer meets again a touring actress who was once his mistress. He accepts an invitation for him and his young wife to stay at her mother's country home for a weekend.

Wild Strawberries (1957) is considered a landmark film in Bergman's career. It dealt with the subject of man's isolation, and like in several films, Bergman used a journey as a plot structure. The Seventh Seal (1957), shot in only 35 days, won prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. This medieval road movie, set in the fourteenth century, explored the individual's relationship with God and the idea of Death: a knight challenges Death to a game of chess. Over the years Max von Sydow, the knight, came to be identified as Bergman's on-screen alter ego. However, von Sydow has played also in action movies.

Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Ingrid Thulin, and Liv Ullmann were Bergman's favorite actresses and Sven Nykvist his regular cameraman. Ullmann, his muse, later left the island of Fårö, where they lived, and gained international stardom. Their daughter Linn became as a novelist. In 1971 Bergman married Ingrid von Rosen; they had already had an affair in the late 1950s. Bergman had four previous marriages: with Else Fisher, Ellen Lundström, Gun Grut, and Käbi Laretei. Ingrid von Rosen died of cancer in 1995.

Recurrent themes in Bergman's films are men's and women's inability to communicate with each other, metaphysical questions of guilt, the existence of God, and the emotional cruelty of human beings. Already from his early play Jack among the Actors, Bergman showed his interest in the ambiguous tension between artist and public. Persona (1966) marked both the beginning of Bergman's personal involvement with Liv Ullmann and his departure from metaphysics toward the realm of human psychology.

At that time Bergman was leaving his post at the Royal Dramatic Theater. He wrote the script in 1965 while hospitalized; withdrawal and illness were also subjects of the film. In his self-analysis and works on tensions between the sexes Bergman continued the psychological tradition of Strindberg. Among his most probing and honest studies of middle-class married couples is Scenes from a Marriage (1974), starring Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Bibi Anderson, and Jan Malmsjö. Originally the film was made as six TV episodes, but Bergman later edited it into feature-length.

Despite Bergman's international status, his films were not always positively received by Swedish critics. In 1962 the director Bo Widerberg published a pamphlet attacking him for reinforcing national stereotypes and calling for a new and more socially conscious national cinema. On the other hand, Summer with Monika was attacked in the United States, where it was shown under the title Monika, the Story of a Bad Girl. Its prints were confiscated in Los Angeles, and a judge declared that the film appealed to potential sex murderers. With all this promotion, Monika circulated for five years in drive-in theatres in the American Midwest. J. O'Neill, Jr.'s review of  Smiles of the Summer Night in Washington Daily News was used as an advertisement: "a Swedish smorgasbord of sex, sin and psychiatry, is available – for the grown-ups please – at..." The Legion of Decency labelled the film "immoral".

In the 1970s and 1980s feminists criticized Bergman's portrayal of women, although he has been considered among the most sensitive interpreters of the inner world of women in Europe. On artistic level the French film theorist Jean Mitry considers The Silence (1963) the perfect example of anticinema, a literary film, embodying everything which should be avoided. "Then we have one of the sisters masturbating while down in the street a tank which has been rolling through the town completely on its own comes to halt, coincidentally right underneath of the windows of her bedroom. No need to mention the sexual symbolism of the tank's gun pointed in the direction of the bedroom, by why on earth should that particular tank be rolling through the streets on its own, except to create its petty effect and to symbolize symbolically a symbolic menace? Etc." (The Aesthetics and Psychology of the Cinema by Jean Mitry, translated by Christopher King, Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997, pp. 348-349)

In 1976 Bergman was arrested by two policeman and charged with income-tax fraud. He suffered a nervous breakdown, closed his studio on Fårö, and left Sweden in protest. The charges were later dropped. Meanwhile, Bergman made his home in Munich, where he was a director at the Residenztheater. The Serpent's Egg (1977), which was filmed in English, dealt with the collapse of the German currency, and other events of the 1920s that paved the way for the Nazis, rise out of Bergman's frustration with the orderly society ande its subordination of the individual. Jörn Donner arranged a meeting with the composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, but plans to film Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. were never realized. Another unrealized project dating from this period was an adaptation on Franz Lehár's operette The Merry Widow (Die lustige Witwe).

Bergman once noted that the cinema was like an exciting mistress to him, but the theatre was his faithful wife. As a film director his greatest international success was the autobiographical Fanny and Alexander (1982). It won the Oscar for best foreign film. But in the Best Picture category it goes to the producer, in this case Jörn Donner. "Mindre förberedd var J, som inte hade kommit överens med Ingrid Bergman om vilka roller de skulle spela när de båda stod på podiet och skulle säga någonting. J vågade sig på att vara skämtsam, gratulerade Akademin till god smak och hotade att läsa upp namnen på alla de hundratals människor som bidragit till resultatet." (Bergman: PM., by Jörn Donner, Stockholm: Ekerlids Förlag, 2009, p. 161)

Bergman was compared to Maz Ophuls, Federico Fellini (who has compared Fellini to Bergman?), and Luchino Visconti. However, some reviews were hostile: "I don't believe one word of this 'love' glup that runs from one end of the film to the other. When Ingmar Bergman talked to me of God and death I respected him despite his past political sympathies. But now that he's prattling on about love, and gentle smiles, and fruit trees in bloom, I think something in him snapped." (Richard Grenier, Commentary, September 1983; quoted in Some Like It Not: Bad Reviews of Great Movies by Ardis Sillick and Michael McCormick, with an introduction by Ed Gorman, London: Aurum Press, 1996, pp. 21-22) In the story a well-to-do Uppsala family comes together to celebrate Christmas 1907. Statues come to life in a beaitiful room and the ghost of the departed mingle freely with the living. Alexander, a 10-year old boy, clashes with religious dogma and the icy Bishop Vergerus.

After returning to Sweden, Bergman wrote film scripts for Billie August and Daniel Bergman and directed at the Royal Swedish Theatre. The Swedish Film Institute launched a new Ingmar Bergman prize to be awarded annually. The Magic Lantern (1988), the director's autobiography, was followed by his film memoir Images: My Life in Film (1993). The Best Intentions (1993), a novel, was based on his parents' lives, and the screenplay for the 1992 film on the same subject. Private Conversations (1996), the extra-marital affair of Ingmar's mother, was directed by Liv Ullman from a screenplay Bergman wrote for her to direct. "It's about a woman and her husband and her lover and how she can and cannot cope with love," Ullman said in an interview. "And also about Ingmar Bergman finding God again. It's a long time since Ingmar played chess and since he stopped to believe." (Ingmar Bergman: His Life and Films by Jerry Vermilye, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, 2002, p. 46)

In October 2001 Bergman announced his plans to make a sequel to Scenes from a Marriage with the 78-year old Erland Josephson and the 62-year old Liv Ullmann who also were members of the original cast in 1973. He wrote the screenplay for Liv Ullmann's film Faithless (2000) and two years later Bergman had a new television production under way – Saraband (2003), saying it would be his last picture. Bergman shot the chamber piece on digital video.

"Saraband may be Bergman's final primal scream, which his art and craft give the severe majesty of a Bach sello suite," wrote Richard Corliss. ('Last Roar From a Legend,' Time, July 5, 2005; https://time.com/archive/6673867. Accessed 1 July 2025) The last period of his Bergman spent his time on Farö mostly reading and talking with his friends on the phone. Ingmar Bergman died on July 30, 2007, on Farö, at the age of 89 .

For further reading: A Companion to Ingmar Bergman, edited by Daniel Humphrey and Hamish Ford (2025); Bergman bakom kulisserna: Ingmar Bergmans samarbeten på teatern by Karin Helander (2025); In the Shadow of Ingmar by Dag Bergman; edited and produced by Thom Britten-Austin (2025); Ingmar Bergman at the Crossroads: Between Theory and Practice, edited by Maaret Koskinen and Louise Wallenberg (2022); Författaren Ingmar Bergman by Jan Holmberg (2018); Ingmar Bergman A-Ö, editor Martin Thomasson (2017); Sonatas, Screams, and Silence: Music and Sound in the Films of Ingmar Bergman by Alexis Luko (2015); Ingmar Bergman: PM. by Jörn Donner (2009); Lusten och dämonerna: Boken om Bergman by Mikael Timm (2008); Ingmar Bergman: Bilder, ed. Lasse Bergström (2008); Tre dagböcker by Maria von Rosen (2004); The Films of Ingmar Bergman by Jesse Kalin ( 2003); Ingmar Bergman: His Life and Films by Jerry Vermilye (2002); I begynnelsen var ordet. Ingmar Bergman och hans tidigare författarskap by Maaret Koskinen (2002); Ingmar Bergman: Magician and Prophet by Mark Gervais (1999); Ingmar Bergman: His Films and Career by Jerry Vermilye (1998); Gender and Representation in the Films of Ingmar Bergman by Marilyn Johns Blackwell (1997); Between Stage and Screen by Egil Tornqvist (1996); Bergman's List, ed. by Gunnar Bergdahl, foreword by Woody Allen, afterword by Jörn Donner (1995); Spel och speglingar. Ingmar Bergmans filmiska estetik by Maaret Koskinen (1993); Ingmar Bergman by Peter Cowie (1992), Ingmar Bergman by Lise-Lote Marker and Frederick J. Marker (1992); The Influence of Existentialism on Ingmar Bergman by Charles B. Ketcham (1988); Ingmar Bergman: A Guide to References and Resources by Birgitta Steene (1982); Ingmar Bergman by Peter Cowie (1982); Ingmar Bergman Directs by John Simon (1972); Djävulens ansikte by Jörn Donner (1962).  Bergman's influence on other directors: Woody Allen, Andrei Tarkovsky - see under Arkady Strugatski.  Note: Eino Kaila's Persoonallisuus (translated into Swedish under the title Personlighetens psykologi) was among the works, that Ingmar Bergman highly valued.

Films:

• Hets, 1944 (Frenzy; screenplay, dir. Alf Sjöberg)
• Kris, 1946 (Crisis)
• Det regnar på vår kärlek, 1946 (It Rains on Our Love)
• Skepp till India land, 1947 (Ship to India)
• Kvinna utan ansikte, 1947 (Woman Without a Face)
• Eva, 1948(co-sc.)
• Musik i mörker, 1948 (Music in Darkness / Night is My Future)
• Hamnstad, 1948 (Port of Call)
• Fängelse, 1949 (The Devil's Wanton)
• Till glädje, 1949 (To Joy)
• Sånt händer inte här, 1950 (This Can't Happen Here)
• Medan staden sover, 1950 (While the City Sleeps; synopsis)
• Frånskild, 1951 (Divorced; story, co.sc.)
• Sommarlek, 1951 (Summer Interlude)
• Kvinnors väntan, 1952 (Waiting Women)
• Sommaren med Monika, 1953 (Summer with Monika)
• Gycklarnas afton, 1953 (Sawdust and Tinsel / The Naked Night)
• En lektion i kärlek, 1954 (A Lesson in Love)
• Sommarnattens leende, 1955 (Smiles of a Summer Night)
• Kvinnodröm, 1955 (Journey into Autumn)
• Sista paret ut, 1956 (The Last Couple Out; story, co-sc.)
• Det sjunde inseglet, 1957 (The Seventh Seal)
• Smultronstället, 1957 (Wild Strawberries)
• Nära livet, 1958 (So Close to Life; based on a novel by Ulla Isaksson)
• Ansiktet, 1958 (The Face)
• Jungfrukällan, 1960 (The Virgin Spring)
• Djävulens öga, 1960 (The Devils Eye)
• Lustgården, 1961 (Pleasure Garden; co-sc.)
• Såsom i en spegel, 1961 (Through a Glass Darkly)
• Nattvardsgästerna, 1962 (Winter Light)
• Tystnaden, 1963 (The Silence)
• För att inte tala om alla dessa kvinnor, 1964 (Now About These Women)
• Persona, 1966
• Stimulantia, 1967 (contributor) 
• Vargtimmen, 1968 (Hour of the Wolf)
• Skammen, 1968 (Shame)
• Riten, 1969 (The Rite)
• Fårödokument 1969, 1970 (The Fårö Documentary)
• Beröringen, 1971 (The Touch)
• Viskningar och rop, 1972 (Cries and Whispers)
• Scener ur ett äktenskap, 1973 (Scenes from a Marriage)
• Trollflöjten, 1974 (The Magic Flute)
• Ansikte mot ansikte, 1975 (Face to Face)
• The Serpent's Egg, 1977 (Ormens ägg)
• Höstsonaten, 1978 (Autumn Sonata)
• Aus dem Leben der Marionetten, 1979-80 (From the Life of the Marionettes/Ur marionetternas liv)
• Fanny och Alexander, 1982 (Academy award for the best foreign film)
• Efter repetitionen, 1984 (After the Rehearsal)
• De två saliga, 1986 (The Blessed Ones; screenplay Ulla Isaksson, from her own novel)
• Dokument Fanny och Alexander, 1986 (Document Fanny and Alexander)
• Karins ansikte, 1985 (Karin's Face)  
• Larmar och gör sig till, 1997 (In the Presence of a Clown; television film)
• Trolösa, 2000 (Faithless; screenplay, dir. Liv Ullman, starring Erland Josephson, Lena Endre)
• Bildmakarna, 2000 (The Image Makers; television film, based on Per Olov Enquist's play, performed in Dramaten)
• Saraband, 2003 (television film, starring Liv Ullmann and Erland Josephson)

Plays, screenplays, short stories, novels, essays, memoirs:

• Kaspers död, 1942
• Jack hos skådespelarna. Skådespel i två akter, 1946
• Mig till skräck, 1947
• Kamma noll, 1948
• Moraliteter. Tre pjäser, 1948 (three morality plays: Rakel och biografivaktmästaren, Dagenslutar tidigt and Mig till Skräck...)
• Staden, 1950-51
• Mordet i Barjärna, 1952
• Det att göra film, 1954 (lecture) - Self-Analysis of a Film-maker (tr. P.E. Burke and Britt Halvarson, 1958)
• Trämålning. Moralitet, 1954
• Nära livet, 1958 (screenplay, with Ulla Isaksson)
• Varje film är min sista film, 1959 (essay in Filmnyheter) - Each Film Is My Last (tr. P.E. Burke and Lennart Swahn)
• Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman, 1960 (contains Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, and The Magician; tr.  Lars Malmstrom and David Kushner)
• The Virgin Spring, 1960 (tr. Lars Malmström and David Kushner)
• En filmtrilogi. Såsom i en spegel, Nattvardsgästerna, Tystnaden, 1963 - A Film Trilogy: Through a Glass Darkly, The Communicants (Winter Light), The Silence (tr. Paul Britten Austin, 1967)
• Persona, 1966 - Persona (tr. Keith Bradfield, 1972)
• The Seventh Seal, 1968 (tr. Lars Malmstrom and David Kushner)
• Wild Strawberries: A Film, 1970 (tr. Lars Malmström and David Kushner)
• Bergman om Bergman, 1970 (ed. Stig Björkman) - Bergman on Bergman (tr. Paul Britten Austin, 1973)
• En passion, 1972
• Riten, Reservatet, Beröringen, Viskningar och rop, 1973
• Scener ur ett äktenskap, 1973 - Scenes from a Marriage (tr. Alan Blair, 1974) - Kohtauksia eräästä avioliitosta (suom. Risto Hannula, 1974)
• Persona; Vargtimmen; Skammen; En passion, 1973 - Persona and Shame: The Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman (tr. Keith Bradfield, 1972)
• Ansikte mot ansikte, 1974 - Face to Face (tr. Alan Blair, 1976)
• Four Stories, 1976 (contains The Touch, Cries and Whispers, The Hour and the Wolf, The Passions of Anna; tr. Alan Blair)
• Ormens ägg, 1976 - The Serpent's Egg (tr. Alan Blair, 1977)
• Höstsonaten, 1978 - Autumn Sonata: A Film (tr. Alan Blair, 1978)
• Ur marionetternas liv, 1980 - From the Life of the Marionettes (tr. Alan Blair, 1980)
• Fanny och Alexander, 1982 - Fanny and Alexander (tr. Alan Blair, 1983) - Fanny ja Alexander (suom. Elina Hytönen, 1984)
• A Project for the Theatre, 1983 (edited and introduced by Frederick J. Marker and Lise-Lone Marker)
• The Marriage Scenarios: Scenes from a Marriage; Face to Face; Autumn Sonata, 1983 (tr. Alan Blair)
• Laterna Magica, 1987 - The Magic Lantern: An Autobiography (tr. Joan Tate, 1988) - Laterna magica (suom. Heikki Eskelinen, 1987)
• Bilder, 1990 - Images: My Life in Film (tr. Marianne Ruuth, 1994) - Kuvasta kuvaan (suom. Heikki Eskelinen, 1991)
• Den goda viljan, 1991 - The Best Intentions (tr.  Joan Tate, 1993; novel, written as a script for the film by Billie August, which won the Golden Palm Award at Cannes in 1992. Translated by Joan Tate.) - Hyvä tahto (suom. Marja Kyrö, 1991)
• Söndagsbarn, 1993 - Sunday's Children: A Novel (translated by Joan Tate, 1993; made into a film directed by Daniel Bergman) - Sunnuntailapsi (suom. Marja Kyrö, 1993)
• Femte akten, 1994 (contains Monolog, Efter repetitionen, Sista skriket, Larmar och gör sig till) - The Fifth Act (tr. Linda Harverty Rugg and Joan Tate, 2001)
• Enskilda samtal, 1996 - Private Conversations: A Novel (tr. Joan Tate, 1996) - Yksityisiä keskusteluja (suom. Marja Kyrö, 1996)
• Föreställningar, 2000
• Saraband, 2003 - Sarabande (suom. Petteri Granström, 2004)
• Tre dagböcker, 2004 (ed.  Maria von Rosen and Ingmar Bergman) - Kolme päiväkirjaa (suom. Marita Salminen, 2005)
• Ofilmat, ospelat, outgivet, 2018 (förord av Abdellah Taïa; kommentar av Maaret Koskinen)
  
• Arbetsboken. 1975-2001, 2018 (förord av Karl Ove Knausgård)
  
• Arbetsboken 1955-1974, 2024 (förord av Dorthe Nors; kommentar av Jan Holmberg)