The Magician
Loved the gothic vibes this was giving off. It took a while for me to get into it, but eventually I fell in love with Max von Sydow's silent illusionist and the rest of Bergman's motley crew. Plus the tonal shifts between humor and horror were brilliantly done. This is one that I will be really excited to revisit in the future!

The Virgin Spring
Not really my style. While I recognize the high level of craft, I must confess that I was pretty disengaged for most of this. Maybe I'll come back to it at some point later on, once I've seen a few more of Bergman's films, but compared to what I have seen (The Magician, Persona, The Seventh Seal), this just doesn't hold up for me.

Hour of the Wolf
Technically wonderful with an intriguing concept and two eerie, nuanced performances from von Sydow and Ullmann, but I just never really got into it. I think I am coming to terms with the fact that Bergman just isn’t totally my vibe. I haven’t totally disliked anything I’ve seen from him, but nothing but Persona really blew me away.

Shame
Tense, hectic, upsetting. Bergman’s wartime drama is unlike anything else I’ve seen from him. I know I have chosen to watch this set of Bergman films due to the recent passing of von Sydow, but once again his co-star Liv Ullmann steals the show for me.

The Passion of Anna
This movie had something that truly surprised me— miraculous color! The Passion of Anna is more melodramatic and painterly than the previous Bergman films I’ve watched, but I still felt a bit lost inside the narrative. I think the film was purposefully ambiguous and self-reflexive, but I felt a distance while I watched this that I could not reconcile.
What I liked most were the actors’ vignettes dispersed throughout the film. These interludes were probably the single most interesting thing I’ve seen from Bergman during this five movie binge of his collaborations with Max von Sydow.

From Here to Eternity
​I love a good melodrama as much as the next guy, but this definitely wasn’t what I was expecting.

The first half really dragged for me, and I struggled to relate to any of the characters. Additionally, I didn’t love Montgomery Cliff’s performance (though Lancaster, Sinatra and the rest brought enough to the table to keep me at least mildly engaged). All of that said, the last half of the film really worked for me. I actually came to appreciate the ensemble cast and the way that Zinnemann intertwined their stories... and then that *historical spoiler* Pearl Harbor attack scene just caught me off guard! It’s an ending as good as any other, and it made me glad to have watched it.

The Sound of Music
Yes, I knew all of the songs, but I didn’t know they were from this movie!! When I referenced “My Favorite Things” in my review of Denis Villeneuve’s Enemy, I was completely unaware that I was referencing The Sound of Music. Seriously, this thing is great... which I guess is why everyone’s always saying it’s great.

In the Heat of the Night (This review may contain spoilers.)
This one’s an oddity to me, mostly because I can’t believe it won Best Picture in 1968. Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger are good, but the “mystery” at the heart of this story is like a bad episode of NCIS (*spoiler* the creepy guy did it) and the racial themes of the movie just don’t hold up to the standards of a 2020 viewing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure this was revolutionary for its time, especially since it won the biggest award in American cinema, but seeing it for the first time in 2020 didn’t do much for me. Shoutout to that “They Call Me Mister Tibbs!” line though— if they ever make a sequel, that’s what I’d call it 😉

A Man for All Seasons
A Man For All Seasons is, by all accounts, a well-scripted, acted and directed movie that I just didn’t care a whole lot about. This was just The Crucible, just more royal and Britishy, and as far as Zinnemann-directed Red Scare metaphor movies go, I’ll take High Noon over this any day.

On the Waterfront (This review may contain spoilers.)
Dang. Terry Malloy’s friends stopped talkin to him because he testified against Johnny Friendly, effectively ending the mob’s stranglehold over the work on the waterfront. My friends stopped talkin to me just cuz.