Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
49 free Ingmar Bergman trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Ingmar Bergman trivia quiz covers the Swedish director whose films about faith, death and marriage made him one of the most admired artists of the twentieth century. The easy questions cover the country, the pastor father, the knight who plays chess with Death, the island where he lived and died and the actress most closely associated with him. From there the quiz moves through the career: the screenplay for Torment, the Cannes prize for Smiles of a Summer Night, the 35-day shoot of The Seventh Seal, Victor Sjostrom in Wild Strawberries, the so-called faith trilogy, Persona, the crimson rooms of Cries and Whispers, Scenes from a Marriage and the five-hour Fanny and Alexander. The hard end covers the man behind the camera: the summer in Nazi Germany at sixteen, the theatres in Helsingborg, Malmo and Stockholm, the 1976 arrest during a Strindberg rehearsal, the exile in Munich, the Thalberg award, the three foreign-language Oscars, the Palme des Palmes, Sven Nykvist and Woody Allen, the nervous stomach and the private lavatories, the five marriages, and the day he died alongside Antonioni. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Ingmar Bergman, The Seventh Seal and Fanny and Alexander before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our film directors, world cinema and Sweden quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01During which calamity is The Seventh Seal set?
The plague
The plague is sweeping the medieval countryside as the knight Antonius Block returns from the Crusades, and Death arrives to claim him.
Q 02What was the profession of Bergman's father, Erik?
Lutheran minister
Lutheran minister Erik Bergman, later chaplain to the royal court, raised his son in a strict parsonage; Ingmar said he lost his faith at eight.
Q 03In The Seventh Seal, what game does the knight Antonius Block play against Death?
Chess
Chess is the game: the knight Antonius Block challenges Death to a match on the beach and reckons he will live as long as it lasts.
Q 04Who played Death in The Seventh Seal?
Bengt Ekerot
Bengt Ekerot, a stage actor and director, played the white-faced, black-cowled Death; the closing Dance of Death silhouette became one of cinema's most recognisable images.
Q 05How many days did Bergman have to shoot The Seventh Seal?
Thirty-five
Thirty-five days was the schedule, on a budget of about $150,000; Bergman shot mostly at the Filmstaden studios with a few days on the coast at Hovs Hallar.
Q 06On which Baltic island did Bergman live for much of his life and film many of his works from 1961 onward?
Faro
Faro, north of Gotland, became his home after he first filmed there in 1961; he died there in his sleep at 89 and lies in the island's churchyard.
Q 07Which actress was Bergman's partner from 1965 to 1970 and mother of his daughter Linn?
Liv Ullmann
Liv Ullmann, the Norwegian actress at the centre of Bergman's late films, was his partner through the late 1960s; their daughter Linn Ullmann, born in 1966, became a novelist.
Q 08Which 1966 Bergman film stars Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullmann?
Persona
He later named it, with Cries and Whispers, as the film in which he pushed the envelope of filmmaking.
Q 09Which veteran Swedish director starred as the ageing professor in Wild Strawberries?
Victor Sjostrom
Victor Sjostrom, the silent-era master of The Phantom Carriage, played Professor Isak Borg at 78 in what proved to be his final screen role.
Q 10How many of Bergman's films won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film?
Three
Three of his films took the award: The Virgin Spring (1960), Through a Glass Darkly (1961) and Fanny and Alexander (1983).
Q 11How many Academy Awards did Fanny and Alexander win?
Four
Four Oscars went to the film at the 1984 ceremony: Best Foreign Language Film, Cinematography, Art Direction and Costume Design.
Q 12How long is the full television version of Fanny and Alexander?
312 minutes
312 minutes is the length of the television version, first broadcast on Swedish television in 1984; the theatrical cut released in 1982 runs 188 minutes.
Q 13Which 1955 comedy was Bergman's first world success, winning a Cannes prize for 'best poetic humour'?
Smiles of a Summer Night
Smiles of a Summer Night, a country-house comedy of couplings, charmed Cannes in 1956; its success let Bergman push through the previously refused screenplay for The Seventh Seal.
Q 21To which city did Bergman move in self-imposed exile after the tax affair?
Munich
Munich became his base: he directed at the Residenztheater from 1977 into the 1980s and made The Serpent's Egg and From the Life of the Marionettes there.
Q 22What was the name of the production company Bergman founded in the late 1960s?
Cinematograph
Cinematograph was the production company Bergman founded in the late 1960s; it made his later Swedish films and its finances were at the heart of the 1976 tax investigation.
Q 23Which honorary Oscar did Bergman receive in 1971?
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
Q 14For which film did Bergman win Best Director at Cannes in 1958?
Brink of Life
Brink of Life, a maternity-ward chamber drama, brought Bergman the Best Director prize at Cannes in 1958, while its lead actresses shared the Best Actress award.
Q 15Which three early-1960s films are usually grouped as Bergman's trilogy on faith and doubt?
Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence
Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light and The Silence were labelled a trilogy on 'God's silence' by Bergman himself in 1963, though he later dismissed the grouping as a 'Schnaps-Idee'.
Q 16During the making of which film did Bergman say he came to terms with having lost his faith?
Winter Light
Winter Light, his 1963 study of a doubting pastor, was where Bergman said he finally settled his own religious question; the loss of faith itself, he said, dated from age eight.
Q 17Which colour dominates the design of Cries and Whispers?
Crimson
Crimson walls, carpets and fades to red fill the manor house; Bergman said he imagined the inside of the soul as a moist red membrane, and the film's Oscar-winning photography made the colour its signature.
Q 18Who was Bergman's best-known cinematographer, later borrowed by Woody Allen for Crimes and Misdemeanors?
Sven Nykvist
Sven Nykvist, Bergman's cinematographer from the 1960s onward, won two Oscars for their work together; Allen also used him on Another Woman and Celebrity.
Q 19What was Bergman rehearsing when arrested for tax evasion at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1976?
Strindberg's The Dance of Death
Strindberg's The Dance of Death was in rehearsal when two plainclothes policemen led Bergman away on 30 January 1976; he suffered a breakdown and was hospitalised.
Q 20How did the prosecutor describe the case when he dropped the charges against Bergman in March 1976?
Like charging a man who stole his own car
Like charging a man who stole his own car was prosecutor Anders Nordenadler's verdict when he dropped the case in March 1976; Bergman still shut his Swedish productions and went abroad.
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, given to producers for consistently high-quality work, went to Bergman at the ceremony held in April 1971, honouring his body of work.
Q 24What special prize did Cannes give Bergman at its 50th anniversary in 1997?
The Palme des Palmes
The Palme des Palmes was a one-off honour created for the festival's 50th edition in 1997; Bergman had never won the Palme d'Or itself despite several nominations.
Q 25For which 1944 film, directed by Alf Sjoberg, did Bergman write his first produced screenplay?
Torment
Torment (Hets), released in Britain as Frenzy, follows a sadistic Latin teacher nicknamed Caligula; it stirred debate about Swedish schools, and Bergman's old headmaster called him a problem child.
Q 26At what age did Bergman become the youngest theatrical manager in Europe, at Helsingborg City Theatre?
Twenty-six
Twenty-six was his age when he took charge at Helsingborg in 1944, the same year his first screenplay reached the screen; he revived the struggling theatre with a young company.
Q 27How many times was Bergman married?
Five
Five marriages, the last to Ingrid von Rosen, who died of stomach cancer in 1995; all but the last ended in divorce.
Q 28How many children did Bergman have in all?
Nine
Nine children in all, born between 1943 and 1966 to six different mothers, all but one of whom he married.
Q 29Which concert pianist was Bergman's fourth wife?
Kabi Laretei
Kabi Laretei, an Estonian-born concert pianist, was married to Bergman from 1959 to 1969; their son Daniel Bergman became a film director.
Q 30Which other celebrated director died on the same day as Bergman, 30 July 2007?
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni, the Italian director of L'Avventura and Blow-Up, died in Rome at 94 on the same day, 30 July 2007.