Winter Light

Winter Light is a Swedish drama about Tomas Ericsson, a Protestant pastor in a small rural parish. Since the death of his wife, he has lost his faith and his capacity for love, and he carries out his duties mechanically, without conviction, before a nearly empty church. A fisherman, Jonas Persson, comes to him in despair, and though his wife asks the pastor to help her husband, Tomas has nothing but empty words to offer. Märta Lundberg, a schoolteacher and declared atheist who loves him, presses him with her affection, which he cannot return. The film follows this day of doubt and spiritual crisis as Tomas struggles with his sense of God's silence.

Ingmar Bergman wrote and directed the film, the twelfth of the twenty-four features he directed, made between Through a Glass Darkly and The Silence. Gunnar Björnstrand plays Tomas, with Ingrid Thulin as Märta, Max von Sydow as Jonas, and Gunnel Lindblom, Allan Edwall and Kolbjörn Knudsen in supporting roles. Allan Ekelund produced it for SF Studios, and it runs eighty minutes.

On IMDb it holds a rating of 8 out of 10 from around 29,000 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.9 out of 10 from roughly 525 votes. A film critics' rating of 8.5 out of 10 from twenty-six reviews places it slightly above both audience scores.