The Seventh Seal
Svensk Filmindustri (SF) | Release Date: October 13, 1958 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
88
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
2
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
The directness of The Seventh Seal is its strength: This is an uncompromising film, regarding good and evil with the same simplicity and faith as its hero. Read full review
100
The GuardianPeter Bradshaw
Ingmar Bergman's dark masterpiece effortlessly sees off the revisionists and the satirists; it is a radical work of art that reaches back to scripture, to Cervantes and to Shakespeare to create a new dramatic idiom of its own. Read full review
100
The New York TimesBosley Crowther
A piercing and powerful contemplation of the passage of man upon this earth. Essentially intellectual, yet emotionally stimulating, too, it is as tough—and rewarding—a screen challenge as the moviegoer has had to face this year. Read full review
100
EmpireDavid Parkinson
Dark but beautiful. Read full review
100
BBCJamie Russell
Full of haunting, iconic images and a touch of hopeful humanity, The Seventh Seal is cinema at its most artful, a philosophical meditation on the meaning(lessness) of this mortal coil. Read full review
100
Time OutJoshua Rothkopf
Prepare to fawn at Bergman’s most metaphysically profound film; you may even laugh. Read full review
100
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
What's most important here is that THE SEVENTH SEAL, for all its downbeat aspects, is so gripping as to be entertaining in an enlightening way. Less austere and more visually striking than some of Bergman's later films. Read full review
100
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
Film has superior technical narrative, impressive lensing and thesping. Read full review
100
The New YorkerPauline Kael
A magically powerful film.
100
The Seattle TimesJohn Hartl
A stark and still-stunning medieval allegory. [14 Sept 1991, p.25]
100
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Jack Charlton
Established Bergman as a director of arresting visual and intellectual power. [6 March 1993]
91
The A.V. ClubZack Handlen
There’s a lot going on in Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, with its striking imagery, bawdy humor, and grim suffering; it’s a humane film about the inhumane inevitability of death. I’m still not much of a cinephile (this is my second Bergman film, and I only watched The Virgin Spring so I could compare it in an essay to The Last House On The Left), but I’m coming to realize that the difference between a good movie and a great one are those moments of intense personal connection where it seems like the filmmaker is reaching out to you through the screen and whispering (or yelling, or cajoling, or demanding, or pleading) in your ear. As if there is no real distance between you and the director, time has changed nothing, and the moment remains as pure as it was on the day it was filmed. Read full review
90
Village VoiceElliott Stein
Max von Sydow gives a performance of a high order as the knight who returns from the Crusades to find his country at the mercy of plague and witch hunts. Read full review
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