Wild Strawberries (1957)

On a road trip to receive an honorary degree, an elderly academic (Victor Sjöstrom) looks back over his life in Ingmar Bergman’s art-cinema classic.

Together with The Seventh Seal (1956), Wild Strawberries confirmed the reputation of Ingmar Bergman as one of world cinema’s finest new talents. Opening with a starkly symbolic dream sequence, the film follows Professor Isak Borg as he journeys by car in the company of his daughter-in-law Marianne (Ingrid Thulin) to collect an award from his former university. The trip occasions a series of reminiscences and reveries, as the ageing Borg revisits the scenes of his youth and reflects on an unhappy marriage.

Bergman pays tribute to his forebears by casting great silent filmmaker Victor Sjöstrom as Borg, but strikes out for a new form of intellectual cinema characterised by probing into the nature of existence. Wild Strawberries also became a model for the road movie.

1957 Sweden
Directed by
Ingmar Bergman
Produced by
Carl Anders Dymling
Written by
Ingmar Bergman
Featuring
Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, Ingrid Thulin
Running time
93 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Wild Strawberries

Critics

Ranjita Biswas
India
Camille Blot-Wellens
France/Sweden
Nandana Bose
India
Ramsey Campbell
UK
V.K. Cherian
India
Euan Franklin
UK
Juan Manuel García Ferrer
Spain
Kaya Genc
Turkey
Fiona Handyside
UK
Mark Le Fanu
UK
Lee Marshall
UK/Italy
Carlos Alberto Mattos
Brazil
Roy Menarini
Italy
Bruno Mestdagh
Belgium
Clodualdo ("Doy") del Mundo
Philippines
Stuart Murray
UK
Eithne O'Neill
France
Dario Oliveira
Portugal
Grazia Paganelli
Italy
Cristiana Paternò
Italy
Sanjin Pejković
Bosnia and Herzegovina/Sweden
Naman Ramachandran
UK/India
Hannes Schüpbach
Switzerland
Jerónimo Silvio Iglesias
Spain
Ivan Velisavljević
Serbia
Jon Wengström
Sweden
Tom White
USA
Geoffrey Wong
Hong Kong

Directors

Giuseppe Pupi Avati
Italy
Ritesh Batra
India/US
Asghar Farhadi
Iran
Daniel Graham
UK
Eugène Green
France
Walter Hill
USA
Ruijun Li
China
Michael Moore
USA
Carlos Vermut
Spain
Klaus Wyborny
Germany

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