10 Greatest Movies About Death

It's impossible to consider the great cinematic depictions of death without discussing Ingmar Bergman's 1957 existential masterpiece The Seventh Seal.

The late, great Max von Sydow stars as Antonius Block, a medieval knight who plays a game of chess against Death himself (Bengt Ekerot) while meditating on the meaning of his own life.

Though the iconic image of the chess match has been widely parodied in pop-culture, it remains one of the most seminal visages in all of cinema, so perfectly encapsulating the human struggle against the indifferent march of time.

The overwhelming majority of Bergman's films examine existential dread in one way or another, but none have done it as artfully or memorably as this, right up to a mesmerising final image sure to imprint itself upon viewers.

If not the most accessible film on this list, it's nevertheless an essential work of world cinema and one of the greatest films ever made about not only death but life.