4. Chess (The Seventh Seal)
In the game that nearly personifies a brilliant mind, chess involves two teams of sixteen characters pitted against one another on an 8-by-8 grid. With its battalion of low-ranking pawns and an all-powerful queen, chess offers not only wide complexities for its players but ample opportunities for metaphorical scenarios. In the Seventh Seal, we only see little of the actual chess game between Antonius Block and Death. And while we know he's doomed to succumb to his opponent from the start, the crusader uses this chess-bout as an opportunity to philosophize, reflecting on the true nature of life and the existence or absence of god. Ultimately, Death, too, has no real answers.