Aniara (2018)
Spaceflight Goes Off Course
Film based on a full-length Swedish SF poem that concerns the despair, emptiness and strange societies that emerge among those aboard a spaceship that is thrown off course
Swedish Cinema
The Devil’s Eye (1960)
The Devil Tempts Innocents Comedy
Ingmar Bergman comedy in which The Devil sends Don Juan to tempt a vicar’s wife. A minor Bergman entry where he seems unsuited to directing comedy and allows his usual weighty philosophical preoccupations to intrude
The Doll (1962)
Man’s Love Affair with a Mannequin
A strange and fascinating Swedish film about a lonely security guard’s obsessive love affair with a mannequin, which duly comes to life. Or does it? The film sits in a place of ambiguity whether he is imagining it or not
The Evil Next Door (2020)
Ghost Story
The Ghost Story is a genre has felt overused and its clichés churned to a point of exhaustion. All of that said, this Swedish film delivers the goods and conjures an extremely spooky mood
Fanny and Alexander (1982)
Family Saga/Ghosts
Ingmar Bergman’s final film, a beautifully shot and richly textured family saga that was loosely autobiographical in nature on Bergman’s part. Contains considerable fantasy content.
Frostbite (2006)
Swedish Vampire Film
Swedish film about vampires at a smalltown hospital and vampire pills thought to be party drugs that spread around the town. This is made with an uneven sense of black humour
The Giant (2016)
Deformed Man Has Daydreams of Being a Giant
For the most part, this plays out as a mundane drama about someone with a terrible deformity – similar to The Elephant Man or Mask – but who also has daydreams in which he is a giant
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009)
Swedish Serial Killer Thriller
Strong and dramatically absorbing Swedish thriller featuring one of the most original and provocative heroines on screen in some time. A word of mouth hit that later underwent a lesser English-language remake
The Gladiators (1969)
Future War Games
Film from the muchly underrated Peter Watkins about a future where nations maintain peace by holding televised war games. As always with Watkins, this is stark, potent and highly politicised
Häxan (1922)
Satanism and Witchcraft Documentary
A bizarre pseudo-documentary from the silent era that claims to recount a history of Satanism and witchcraft. Much of the film’s thesis is spurious but the results are facsinating
Hour of the Wolf (1968)
Tormented Artist's Hallucinations
One of the works of the celebrated Ingmar Bergman with Max Von Sydow as an artist tormented by insomnia who starts to slip into disturbing hallucinations where he (and we) can not be certain what is being seen is real
In Search of Dracula (1975)
Documentary About Bram Stoker and Origins of Dracula
A documentary that explores Bram Stoker and the creation of Dracula, Transylvania and Vlad the Impaler. Narrated by Christopher Lee, who we see playing both Dracula and Vlad the Impaler
Let the Right One In (2008)
Child-like Vampire
A strong and unusual Swedish vampire film that is less a horror film than one about friendship between a boy and the very strange girl next door who we gradually realise is a vampire
The Magician (1958)
Enigmatic Magician
Ingmar Bergman film about a travelling magic show. Bergman is fascinated with the power that illusionists hold and what happens behind the mask. A spellbinding film that is more haunted that most genre films
Metropia (2009)
Near-Future Dystopia
Animated film set in a dystopian near-future Europe of constant surveillance where even people’s heads are monitored
The Phantom Carriage (1921)
Death's Carriage Driver
Silent film whose greatest footnote is that it was Ingmar Bergman’s favourite film. Has some extraordinary fantastic images, even if these are technically primitive today. Less effective is the modern attempts to view it as a ghost story, when it is more a morality play akin to A Christmas Carol
Pippi Goes on Board (1970)
Anarchic Girl
The second of the excruciatingly dull Swedish-made Pippi Longstocking live-action films
Pippi in the South Seas (1970)
Anarchic Girl
Third of the Swedish live-action Pippi Longstocking films and more likeable than the others due to capturing some of Astrid Lindgren’s absurdism
Pippi Longstocking (1969)
Anarchic Girl
First of a series of Swedish-made live-action films based on Astrid Lindgren’s anarchic child heroine
Pippi on the Run (1973)
Anarchic Girl
Fourth and final of the Swedish live-action films based on Astrid Lindgren’s child heroine Pippi Longstocking
The Sacrifice (1986)
Praying Back the Nuclear Holocaust
Andrei Tarkovsky’s final film, a slow and weighty meditation upon questions of faith as one man prays to turn back a nuclear holocaust
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Death Incarnate
Ingmar Bergman’s classic work where Max Von Sydow plays a game of chess with Death. A film that seems to carry the philosophical weight of the modern world on its shoulders
Songs from the Second Floor (2000)
Surreal Vignettes
From Swedish director Roy Andersson, a series of plotless, surreal vignettes pitched with black humour
Support Group Olympus (2021)
Greek Gods in the Present-Day
A film about the Greek gods trying to get by in the present-day where they are suddenly all required to attend a support group
Terror in the Midnight Sun (1959)
Alien Monster
Possibly the dreariest alien invader film ever made. A US film shot in Sweden about an expedition to find a crashed meteorite. An alien monster that looks like a giant shaggy Yeti turns up in the last few minutes.
Victor Frankenstein (1977)
Frankenstein Adaptation
Less well known adaptation of the Frankenstein story that can arguably be considered the most faithful of all the film versions
The Virgin Spring (1959)
Revenge Film
One of the classic works from Ingmar Bergman, uncreditedly remade by Wes Craven as The Last House on the Left, with Max Von Sydow as a virtuous farmer who is driven to vengeance after three youths rape and kill his daughter