Perhaps the most heatedly discussed and debated film of Ingmar Bergman’s career. A renowned stage actress (Liv Ullmann) suffers an acute mental breakdown. During her convalescence she grows increasingly dependent upon her nurse (Bibi Andersson). An intimate and strange bond develops between the pair in this psychological drama.

Winner of the National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress (Bibi Andersson)

Winner of the Swedish Film Institute Awards for Best Picture and Best Actress (Bibi Andersson)

"Anyone who has seen PERSONA will understand at once when I salute it as one of the most courageous films ever made. Bergman draws the spectator into the film demanding total emotional involvement. PERSONA marks not only a new phase in his development but a new extension of his genius, a further dimension. He has been able through his courage and intelligence to convert a private anguish into a universal witness, while remaining intensely human. For all the anguish and the sense of deep hurt, there is a marvelously sensitive feeling, at once dynamic and compassionate, for human potentialities, for the development of consciousness."

- Robin Wood, INGMAR BERGMAN

"There is a brief sequence in Ingmar Bergman’s PERSONA—Bibi Andersson tells about a day and night of sex. As she goes on taking, with memories of summer and nakedness and pleasure in her words and the emptiness of the present in her face, we begin to hold our breath in fear that Bergman can't sustain this intolerably difficult sequence. But he does and it builds and builds and builds and is completed. It's one of the rare, truly erotic sequences on film."

- Pauline Kael, THE NEW YORKER