The Black Death is wiping out the population of Europe as Antonius Block, a knight, returns disillusioned from the Crusades. Death appears before him, but he asks for a chance to live and proposes a game of chess.

Around him religion is becoming fanatical and society is collapsing. A witch is burned, but not before he questions her. He takes under his protection his squire, a troupe of traveling players, and a deaf and dumb girl.

Death takes his toll one by one, but Block manages to stall him long enough that the young family of players may get to safety. Then Death leads his prisoners away doing their dance of death.

"Ingmar Bergman's medieval morality play about man in search of the meaning of life is set in 14th-century Sweden. But it's a magically powerful film–the story seems to be playing itself out in a medieval present. A knight (Max von Sydow), tormented and doubting, returns from 10 wasted years in the Crusades, and Death (Bengt Ekerot) comes to claim him. Hoping to gain some revelation or obtain some knowledge before he dies, the knight challenges Death to a game of chess. As they play, the knight observes scenes of cruelty, rot, and suffering that suggest the tortures and iniquity Ivan Karamazov described to Alyosha. In the end, the knight tricks Death in order to save a family of strolling players–a visionary, innocent, natural man, Joseph (Nils Poppe), his wife (Bibi Andersson), and their infant son. The knight, a sane modern man, asking to believe despite all the evidence of his senses, is childlike compared with his carnal atheist squire (Gunnar Björnstrand). The images and the omens are medieval, but the modern erotic and psychological insights add tension, and in some cases, as in the burning of the child-witch (Maud Hansson), excruciation. The actors' faces, the aura of magic, the ambiguities, and the riddle at the heart of the film all contribute to its stature."

"Say anything you want against The Seventh Seal. My fear of death–this infantile fixation of mine–was, at that moment, overwhelming. I felt myself in contact with death day and night, and my fear was tremendous. When I finished the picture, my fear went away. I have the feeling simply of having painted a canvas in an enormous hurry–with enormous pretension but without any arrogance. I said, 'Here is a painting; take it, please.'"

Ingmar Bergman: "A Program Note to The Seventh Seal"

Tom Charity: "Guilty Omissions: The Seventh Seal"