Few films have had as large a cultural impact as Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (Det sjunde inseglet). Disillusioned and exhausted after a decade of battling in the Crusades; a knight (Max von Sydow) encounters Death on a desolate beach and challenges him to a fateful game of chess. Much studied; imitated; even parodied; but never outdone; Bergman's stunning allegory of man's search for meaning was one of the benchmark foreign imports of America's 1950s art house heyday; pushing cinema's boundaries and ushering in a new era of moviegoing.