Winter Light

1963 ‘Nattvardsgästerna’ Directed by Ingmar Bergman

A Swedish pastor fails a loving woman, a suicidal fisherman and God.

Gunnar Björnstrand Ingrid Thulin Gunnel Lindblom Max von Sydow Allan Edwall Kolbjörn Knudsen Olof Thunberg

Alternative Titles

冬之光, Luz de invierno, De Avondmaalsgasten

drama

80 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by Karsten Runquist ★★★★ 14

While Schrader's film was heavily influenced by this I think they're on two completely different pages. For one, this doesn't have a magical mystery tour. Secondly, I'm tired and am gonna go to bed, actually.
Review by BRAT ★★★★ 21

almost as impeccable as its progeny first reformed (2017) but alas..,....,..., no pepto-bismol whiskey :(
Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 2

"Suffering is incomprehensible,
So it needs no explanation."
And neither does this film.
It shouldn't be explained.
It should be experienced.
Possibly Bergman's finest.
A cinematic crisis of faith.
That letter.
Those eyes.
Review by Robert Beksinski ★★★★★ 2

Lying beneath the arches and mosaics of the moderately decorated architecture, the dusty half empty pews, and the flooded natural sun leaking down over the congregation is a clandestine struggle quietly waging war within us. In a Bergman film, this is merely setting the stage.
Winter Light is an example of a perfect film, at least in the Bergman vocabulary sense. For a film designed almost in a theatrical concept for its minimalism, it remains largely cinematic, and achieves a great deal over the course of a hour in real time and only an afternoon in film time. In the space between morning congregation and afternoon ceremonies, the lives of a small group of individuals is tested in the most…
Review by Sally Jane Black 3

I am going to ramble until I make sense of my thoughts on this:
It is no coincidence, I think, that the one person in this film to have a deeper understanding of Jesus and his own faith does so through open compassion. Algot, who is apparently physically disabled, dismisses the physical pain of Jesus in favor of the spiritual and emotional pain of being abandoned, citing it as the more severe form of pain suffered during the Passion. His insight into Jesus' suffering is in contrast to the faithless and broken Tomas, who has failed (in a manner that is, to me, a personally devastating manner) to reach out with compassion to anyone (in the course of the film).…
Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 4

89/100
As the light reaches in through the windows, those who pray cower in their respective pews. Although the sun shines, everyone understands that the outside world is one of shivering bitterness and modern gasps of fear. Clinging, clinging, clinging to someone who will listen, quietly hoping for a reply within the shattered chambers of the church. The silence gives way to hardened spouts of regret and anguishing periods of hopelessness, but then again, does that even matter when one still happens to listen and the snow continues to descend?
Review by Edgar Cochran ★★★★★ 30

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (John 15:5)
Second part of the auteur's trilogy dealing with man's relationship with God. It is literally impossible to relate with this masterpiece's protagonist unless you are a son of God. "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." (John 1:12)
What is so absolutely accurate and brilliant about the movie is the fact that it states how agnostics, atheists, etc. lose their credibility in God based on the actions of humans, not…
Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★½ 21

God is going. Winter Light is a very personal film for Ingmar Bergman, whose father was a priest. It's a very small scale film, even for Bergman, but about the largest of all things: God and creation itself. Made in the 1960s, Winter Light slots into an era when Bergman spent years making thematically connected films, as opposed to the somewhat unpredictable genre jumping of his late 50s output (religious - The Seventh Seal, social realist - Brink of Life, historical - The Magician, sentimental drama - Wild Strawberries). Winter Light is the middle and best of Bergman's Silent God Trilogy (or Faith Trilogy), and grapples with faith on a very powerful individual level.
Scandinavia, like much of Europe, has turned increasingly secular…
Review by Evan Eaton ★★★★½ 2

In a mere 80 minutes, Bergman fills his audience with more existential nausea than Schrader did with First Reformed in just under 2 hours. Consider this, then note that Winter Light is more than half a century old, and you should end up with the answer on which is the prevailing film. Even so, given how spiritually bonded these two parables are, it’ll be exciting to sit down and double-bill them some day. Gunnar Björnstrand and Ingrid Thulin give the best performances I’ve seen in a Bergman film yet, their crushing portrayals of pastor and parishioner in love against the odds conjuring all the misery one might expect. Few films articulate the weight of authority to this extent, and silence has never felt so deadly.
Review by BananaPudding ★★★★½ 4

Local pastor having an existential crisis while simultaneously being an asshole for 80 minutes, a great way to spend your time if you want to feel miserable. Shit rocked
Review by DK ★★★★ 9

Winter Light is part of Ingmar Bergman's trilogy 'Silence of God' which consist of three films about the crisis of a human's faith; Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, and The Silence. In despite of likely I was misunderstood in the order in which I watched it, it's not really matter since each story of the three films doesn't quite relate to one another. Bergman seems to have shifted somewhat from his work of expressionism and surrealism in the 50s to focus on a sequence of dramas regarding to the morality of the faith that explored beliefs and their alienation in modern times, trilogies examining the necessity for religion and questioning the promise of faith.
Winter Light focuses on the…
Review by Paul Elliott ★★★★½ 2

Openly theological, Ingmar Berman's Winter Light is perhaps the legendary Swedish filmmaker's bleakest film. It's the central passage in what would later come to be referred to as his "Trilogy of Faith", following Through a Glass Darkly and preceding The Silence. Its primary concerns are suicide, physical suffering and harsh Scandinavian winters.
Taking place throughout an afternoon in rural Sweden, as one church service ends and another begins, it accounts a Lutheran pastor named Tomas Ericsson (Gunnar Bjornstrand) undergoing a crisis of faith. The pastor has found the number of his congregation members dwindling until only a few people remain, including Tomas's ex-mistress, Märta (Ingrid Thulin), an atheist who is blindly in love with him.
Scepticism about God's presence is…

Recent reviews

Review by isaacjones ★★★★

ooh hoo hoo this is immaculate, baby. Yes, I still love First Reformed but it is shocking to see how directly it lifted from this. But that's all I'll say about that. This shit rules and is exactly what I want out of an examination of faith and duty - dogmatic!!! Every frame of this is truly sensational and every actor is bomb. Ingrid Thulin...
Only 90 minutes yet so full. Perhaps every movie should try this. Now stay tuned for my next review where I criticize a movie for being 90 minutes.
Criterion Challenge 14/52
Review by Frances Meh ★★★★★

An imaginary conversation between me, Frances Meh, and the great Swedish director Ingmar Bergman:

IB: God’s so silent wtf
Me: yeah?
IB: I talk to Him but He never answers
Me: go on
IB: it’s like he’s not even there
Me: you’re almost —
IB: He must be testing my faith
Me: damnit so close
Review by Finklereviews ★★★★ 7

This isn't Winter Sleep ⁉️
Review by lucio97

Dio, perché mi hai abbandonato
Review by Ben Jessup ★★★★

Gonna go watch First Reformed again 🙏🏻
Review by Eric Eidelstein ★★★½ 1

Paws up Ingrid Thulinites!
Review by _aaron ★★★½

Yeah I thought it was pretty good. I thought it brought up some interesting themes especially in that monologue and especially as a Christian person. But yeah I don’t think I really have all hat much to say. Beginning of the third act things really seem to slow down for quite a while which was fine as part of the theme but pacing seemed to be weird for me in terms of plot.
I thought it was good, but not gonna lie, I Criterion's commentary took it up a half star for me. It was really great!
Review by Arpit ★★★★

The second film of Bergman's Faith Trilogy, Winter Light follows a pastor in doubt of his faith and unable to show compassion. The chilling cold landscapes, shot as perfectly as they could be by Sven Nykvist, convey the overall mood: a cold, perplexed, emotional state.
Review by Ansel Hendrix ★★★★★ 1

Cinema and Catholicism have about as healthy of a relationship as your Uncle Ed and his third wife
Review by Salvador Kent ★★★★½

A masterclass in minimalist cinema, with complex characters, complex themes, and one of the best monologues on the passion ever put on the silver screen.
Also fuck Paul Schrader.
Review by prodriale ★★★★★

Desgarradora e impactante. Me ha dejado completamente devastado. Cada plano y cada diálogo contiene una cantidad de información apabullante, es increíble la cantidad de cosas que te cuenta en apenas 1h20 de película.
Review by Leonardo Bloise ★★★★★

Que obra prima. Fazia um tempo que eu não assistia um filme do Bergman, e acho que fiz a escolha certa para continuar sua filmografia.
Aqui ele dirige trazendo todo o foco para o elemento humano, elevando as encenações ao extremo, tirando monólogos incríveis de seu elenco.
Utiliza os demais elementos da linguagem de forma mais discreta, mas não menos expressiva.
Através do silêncio, nos faz prestar atenção no som do relógio, do vento...
Através de planos fixos nos atores, nos leva a atenção para gestos simples, como o abaixar de uma cabeça. Nessas pequenas coisas ele vai revelando muito dos conflitos internos de seus personagens e possibilita (como sempre) que diversos temas de imensa relevância sejam abordados com extrema sutileza.