Det sjunde inseglet (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1957)

In 1955 Bergman had tried to get The seventh seal funded by Svensk Filmindustri, but nobody was interested. When Bergman was nominated for the Palme d'Or for his Smiles of a Summer Night in 1956 things changed. Bergman borrowed money to travel to Cannes and asked the then chairman of SF to fund The seventh seal.

This time Bergman got a limited budget and not really enough days to shoot the film. This shows. One example: the lit window of the building next to the film studio is visible when soldiers are taking a girl to the place of execution (the story is set during the crusades) and there are quite a few errors in the continuity.
However, these shortcomings don't matter.

The seventh seal is a wonderful film. The story deals with a knight who returns from the Crusades and his servant. They have been away for ten years. The Black Death is raging in Sweden and Death has come for the knight. The knight persuades Death to play a game of chess with him. The Knight knows he will lose but the game buys him some extra time to do a good deed. Death agrees. After the horrors of war the knight is wrestling with the question whether there is a God. His servant is past that stage. He denies the existence of a higher power. They are a contrast to a couple in a troupe of travelling actors who are cheerful christians.
The story tells the gripping tale of the couple and the knight with his servant who are travelling towards the knight's castle. On the way they meet villagers who are in varying degrees terrified by the coming of the Black Death.  There is an impressive scene in which the main characters meet a group of flagellantes who whip themselves to allay the wrath of God who sent the plague because of the sins the people committed.
Later there is a wonderful scene in which the group are having a meal of strawberries and milk. The atmosphere is serene and happy.
They discuss faith. The knight says:

                Faith is a torment, did you know that? It is
like loving someone who is out there in the
darkness but never appears, no matter how
loudly you call.

He is now very close to the moment when he is going to lose the chess match. But he says:

                I shall remember this moment. The silence, the
twilight, the bowls of strawberries and milk,
your faces in the evening light. Mikael
sleeping, Jof with his lyre. I'll try to
remember what we have talked about. I'll carry
this memory between my hands as carefully as
if it were a bowl filled to the brim with fresh
milk.