Best movies & TV Shows like The Best Intentions

A judge in an unnamed country interviews three actors, together and singly, provoking them while investigating a pornographic performance for which they may face a fine. Their relationships are complicated: Sebastian, volatile, a heavy drinker, in debt, guilty of killing his former partner, is having an affair with that man's widow. She is Thea, high strung, prone to fits, and seemingly fragile, currently married to Sebastian's new partner, Hans. Hans is the troupe leader, wealthy, self-contained, and growing tired. The judge plays on the trio's insecurities, but when they finally, in a private session with him, perform the masque called The Rite, they may have their revenge.

A film based on the pictures from Ingmar Bergman's personal photo album, especially the pictures of his mother Karin.

Rational, exacting, and self-controlled theater director, Henrik Vogler, often stays after rehearsal to think and plan. On this day, Anna comes back, ostensibly looking for a bracelet. She is the lead in his new production of Strindberg's A Dream Play. She talks of her hatred for her mother, now dead, an alcoholic actress, who was Vogler's star and lover.

After a seven-year absence, Charlotte Andergast travels to Sweden to reunite with her daughter Eva. The pair have a troubled relationship: Charlotte sacrificed the responsibilities of motherhood for a career as a classical pianist. Over an emotional night, the pair reopen the wounds of the past. Charlotte gets another shock when she finds out that her mentally impaired daughter, Helena, is out of the asylum and living with Eva.

In this film about Ingmar Bergman's parents, Henrik Bergman is studying for the priesthood and trying to make ends meet when he encounters the lovely, affluent Anna. Despite their social differences, Henrik and Anna fall in love, wed and move to the country. They lead a quiet life as Henrik works as a priest, but it isn't long before the simple people and plain surroundings make Anna long for a more lavish lifestyle, which causes marital stress.

As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so deeply immersed in their own psychic pains that they can't offer her the support she needs. Maria is wracked with guilt at her husband's attempted suicide, caused by his discovery of her extramarital affair. The self-loathing, suicidal Karin seems to regard her sister with revulsion. Only Anna, the deeply religious maid who lost her young child, seems able to offer Agnes solace and empathy.

In a time of social change and unrest, war and poverty, a young working class woman, Maria, wins a camera in a lottery. The decision to keep it alters her whole life.

As children in the loving Ekdahl family, Fanny and Alexander enjoy a happy life with their parents, who run a theater company. After their father dies unexpectedly, however, the siblings end up in a joyless home when their mother, Emilie, marries a stern bishop. The bleak situation gradually grows worse as the bishop becomes more controlling, but dedicated relatives make a valiant attempt to aid Emilie, Fanny and Alexander.

A wounded captain recalls his youth, his time at college, and the woman he fell in love with.

Andreas, a man struggling with the recent demise of his marriage and his own emotional isolation, befriends a married couple also in the midst of psychological turmoil. In turn he meets Anna, who is grieving the recent deaths of her husband and son. She appears zealous in her faith and steadfast in her search for truth, but gradually her delusions surface. Andreas and Anna pursue a love affair, but he is unable to overcome his feelings of deep humiliation and remains disconnected. Meanwhile, the island community is victimized by an unknown person committing acts of animal cruelty.

Widowed Elinor Randall and her young daughter Jerrine arrive in a barren stretch of Wyoming in 1910 after Elinor's application for work as a housekeeper is accepted by Clyde Stewart, a rancher. The work is back-breaking and the isolation is brutal, particularly as winter arrives. Elinor begins to think about homesteading her own property near Stewart's ranch, but Stewart tries to dissuade her with explanations about the killing conditions and poor rewards, especially for a woman with no man to help her ranch. Although their temperaments are different and little affection exists, Elinor and Stewart agree to marry and combine homesteads. What lies ahead is the severest test of all.

Five conversations frame a flawed marriage in this film written by Ingmar Bergman about his parents. Guilt-ridden wife Anna (Pernilla August) divulges an extramarital affair to a priest, her uncle Jacob (Max von Sydow). He presses her to confess her sins to her husband, Henrik. As the film moves back and forth in time, the notion of truth is tested. Tomas, the lover, and Henrik will find that Anna's confessions do not absolve anyone, and have the power to inflict more pain.

In this sequel to Scenes from a Marriage (1973), we revisit the characters of Johan and Marianne, then a married couple. After their divorce, Johan and Marianne haven't seen each other for 32 years. Marianne is still working, as a divorce lawyer. Johan is quite well off and has retired to a house in the Orsa finnmark district of Sweden. On a whim, Marianne decides to visit him. Johan's son from a previous marriage, Henrik, lives nearby in a cottage with his daughter Karin, a gifted cello player. The relationship between father and son is strained.

In the midst of a civil war, former violinists Jan and Eva Rosenberg, who have a tempestuous marriage, run a farm on a rural island. In spite of their best efforts to escape their homeland, the war impinges on every aspect of their lives.

Early in the 20th century, middle-aged lawyer Fredrik Egerman and his young wife, Anne, have still not consummated their marriage, while Fredrik's son finds himself increasingly attracted to his new stepmother. To make matters worse, Fredrik's old flame Desiree makes a public bet that she can seduce him at a romantic weekend retreat where four couples convene, swapping partners and pairing off in unexpected ways.

The daughter of a Scottish farmer comes of age in the early 1900s.

After discovering that his wife has been killed in an accident, Stig looks back on their relationship, beginning with when he and Marta were starting out as violinists together in an orchestra overseen by conductor Sonderby.

A Swedish housewife begins an adulterous affair with a foreign archaeologist. But he is an emotionally scarred man, a Jewish survivor from a concentration camp, consequently, their relationship will be painfully difficult.

A personal and captivating account of the extraordinary life and work of Ingrid Bergman (1915-82), a young Swedish woman who became one of the most celebrated actresses in world cinema.

After 15 years of marriage, David and Marianne have grown apart. David has had an affair with a patient of his and Marianne has got herself involved with her former lover Carl-Adam, who's also David's best friend. When she travels to Copenhagen to meet Carl-Adam, David takes the same train as she does, making it look coincidental. Spending time together remembering their past and talking about their future, they come to understand each other again, which leads to a reconciliation.

Little Pu spends a summer in Norrland with all his relatives. He and his brother get to hear the story about the watchmaker who hung himself, learns to shoot with a bow and follow his father on a bicycle trip.

Rakel, Marta, Karin and Annette are married to four brothers. While waiting in a summer cottage for their husbands to come home, they tell each other stories about their marriages. Rakel tells about the time she had an affair and confronted her husband with it. Marta's story is about how she at first refused to marry and had her child by herself. Karin tells about what happened when one time she and her husband got stuck in an elevator together. While the women tell their stories, Marta's younger sister Maj is planning to elope.

Johan and Marianne are married and seem to have it all. Their happiness, however, is a façade for a troubled relationship, which becomes even rockier when Johan admits that he's having an affair. Before long, the spouses separate and move towards finalizing their divorce, but they make attempts at reconciling. Even as they pursue other relationships, Johan and Marianne realize that they have a significant bond, but also many issues that hinder that connection.

Three women in a maternity ward reveal their lives and intimate thoughts to each other.

Sune, a dropped out theology student who also is the son of a priest, meets Viveka in a church. The two connect via a theological discussion and eventually get married. As the years pass, Viveka grows more and more emotionally unstable due to jealousy and religious anxiety. Sune accepts Viveka's mental problems and, instead of seeking help for his wife, obeys her increasingly bizarre commands.

"The Undefeated Femininity" - a film about Gun Grut Bergman. In September 1949 Ingmar Bergman left his wife and five children, and escaped to Paris with a new woman, Gun Grut. It was the beginning of a passionate love affair, an enduring jealousy drama and a new theme in Bergman's films. Now their son, Ingmar Bergman Jr, walks in his parents' footsteps, from Paris to the home on Grev Turegatan 69 in Stockholm.

The third installment of the Sarah trilogy provides a glorious and touching story of a family drawn together by adversity. On a cold winter day a stranger shows up at the farm. He is slow to reveal his identity. When they find out he is Jacobs father, John Witting, thought long ago dead, hard questions about the past are difficult to get answered.

Herr Sleeman kommer is a 1917 one-act play by the Swedish author Hjalmar Bergman. The main character is an orphaned young woman who is about to be married off to an unappealing but rich old man, Mr. Sleeman, at the instigation of her aunts who have taken charge of her. Bergman infuses the situation with overtones of rueful pessimism concerning life in general.

In the sixties, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) built a house on the remote island of Fårö, located in the Baltic Sea, left Stockholm and went to live there. When he died, the house was preserved. A group of very special cinephiles, came from all over the world, travel to Fårö in search of the genius and his legacy. (Released in 2013, edited and abridged, as Trespassing Bergman.)

Upstairs: the wealthy, aristocratic Bellamys. Downstairs: their loyal and lively servants. For nearly 30 years, they share a fashionable townhouse at 165 Eaton Place in London’s posh Belgravia neighborhood, surviving social change, political upheaval, scandals, and the horrors of the First World War.

Johan and Marianne are married and seem to have it all. Their happiness, however, is a façade for a troubled relationship, which becomes even rockier when Johan admits that he's having an affair. Before long, the spouses separate and move towards finalizing their divorce, but they make attempts at reconciling. Even as they pursue other relationships, Johan and Marianne realize that they have a significant bond, but also many issues that hinder that connection.

Dr. Jenny Isaksson is a psychiatrist married to another psychiatrist; both are successful in their jobs but slowly, agonizingly, Jenny succumbs to a breakdown. She is haunted by images and emotions from her past and eventually cannot function as a wife, doctor, or individual.

The desolate and mysterious island of Fårö, Sweden, Baltic Sea, 2004. Swedish master filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) looks back on his personal and artistic life; a journey through more than sixty years devoted to film, plays and television programs. (Released in 2006, edited and abridged, as Bergman Island.)

The story of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, from early youth to his election as President of the United States, as told from Eleanor's point of view.

A story of five siblings growing up in their family's crumbling manor.