Holiday Buying Guide

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Bergman, who died this July at 89, was once widely considered cinema's greatest writer-director. Today he is known mainly as the guy Woody Allen likes. Here's the most concise chance to see what all the hubbub was about. For Dec. 4 release, Criterion is packaging a Bergman quartet from the 50s: the three very different films that made his reputation — the rollicking, rueful comedy Smiles of a Summer Night, the medieval passion play The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries, a poignant evocation of aging — and his first Oscar winner, The Virgin Spring. If the ambition, acuity and beautiful, soulful women in these four films don't make you a Bergman convert, you have our permission to renounce him and all his works, and return to your PlayStation 3.

— Richard Corliss