50 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Ingmar Bergman was a film and theatre director from which country?
Sweden
He was born in Uppsala in 1918 and made more than 60 films and documentaries.
Q 02What was the profession of Bergman's father, Erik?
Lutheran minister
He later became chaplain to the King; Ingmar said he lost his faith at eight.
Q 03In The Seventh Seal, what game does the knight Antonius Block play against Death?
Chess
Max von Sydow's knight believes he can survive as long as the game continues.
Q 04Who played Death in The Seventh Seal?
Bengt Ekerot
The film's 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
He rewrote the script several times and had a budget of $150,000.
Q 06On which Baltic island did Bergman live for much of his life and film many of his works from 1961 onward?
Faro
He died there in his sleep at 89 and was buried in the island's churchyard.
Q 07Which Norwegian actress was Bergman's partner from 1965 to 1970 and mother of his daughter Linn?
Liv Ullmann
She was the last to join his company of regular actors and the only mother of his children he never married.
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
The film won the Golden Bear at Berlin and was released ten months after The Seventh Seal in 1957.
Q 10How many of Bergman's films won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film?
Three
The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Fanny and Alexander were the winners.
Q 11How many Academy Awards did Fanny and Alexander win?
Four
Its full television cut is one of the longest films ever made.
Q 12How long is the full television version of Fanny and Alexander?
312 minutes
It was conceived as a miniseries first and cut down for cinemas.
Q 13Which 1955 comedy was Bergman's first world success, winning a Cannes prize for 'best poetic humour'?
Smiles of a Summer Night
Its success let him push through the previously refused screenplay for The Seventh Seal.
For which film did Bergman win Best Director at Cannes in 1958?
Q 21To which city did Bergman move in self-imposed exile after the tax affair?
Munich
He ran a theatre there from 1977 to 1984.
Q 22What was Bergman's Swiss subsidiary at the centre of the tax probe, sharing its name with a 1966 film?
Persona
It mainly paid the salaries of foreign actors; the alleged transaction was 500,000 kronor from 1970.
Q 23Which honorary Oscar did Bergman receive in 1971?
The Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award
He also collected three competitive foreign-language wins for Swedish entries.
Brink of Life
The same year Wild Strawberries took the Golden Bear in Berlin.
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
He first denied planning them as a trilogy, then half-heartedly accepted the label.
Q 16During the making of which film did Bergman say he came to terms with having lost his faith?
Winter Light
He said the loss itself had happened at the age of eight.
Q 17Which colour dominates the design of Cries and Whispers?
Crimson
His regular cinematographer shot it; it was nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and cost about $450,000.
Q 18Who was Bergman's best-known cinematographer, later borrowed by Woody Allen for Crimes and Misdemeanors?
Sven Nykvist
Their rapport let Bergman leave a shot's composition until the day before it was filmed.
Q 19What was Bergman rehearsing when arrested for tax evasion at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1976?
Strindberg's The Dance of Death
Two plainclothes officers took him away; he suffered a nervous 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
Bergman still went into self-imposed exile in Munich and said he lost eight years of his professional life.
Q 24What special prize did Cannes give Bergman at its 50th anniversary in 1997?
The Palme des Palmes
He had never won an actual Palme d'Or despite several nominations.
Q 25For which 1944 film, directed by Alf Sjoberg, did Bergman write his first produced screenplay?
Torment
Also known as Frenzy, it sparked a debate about Swedish high schools; his old principal called him a problem child.
Q 26At what age did Bergman become the youngest theatrical manager in Europe, at Helsingborg City Theatre?
Twenty-six
He then ran the Gothenburg city theatre from 1946 to 1949 and Malmo from 1953.
Q 27How many times was Bergman married?
Five
Four ended in divorce; his last wife, Ingrid von Rosen, died of stomach cancer in 1995.
Q 28How many children did Bergman have in all?
Nine
He eventually married every mother of his children except one.
Q 29Which concert pianist was Bergman's fourth wife?
Kabi Laretei
Their son Daniel became a film director; the marriage ran from 1959 to 1969.
Q 30Which other celebrated director died on the same day as Bergman, 30 July 2007?
Michelangelo Antonioni
Both were often called existentialist filmmakers.