Through a Glass DarklyMovies like Through a Glass Darkly
- Key Features:
- Mental illness, Family drama, Isolation, Existentialism, Psychological horror, Faith, Guilt, Dysfunctional family, Infidelity, Religious allegory, Moral decay, Despair, Betrayal, Nudity-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, restrained
- Target Audience:
- Fans of psychological dramas, Viewers interested in existential themes, Art house cinema enthusiasts, Those who appreciate character-driven stories
- Emotional Arc:
- Anxiety → Despair
Through a Glass Darkly

Karin hopes to recover from her recent stay at a mental hospital by spending the summer at her family's cottage on a tiny island. Her husband, Martin, cares for her but is frustrated by her physical withdrawal. Her younger brother, Minus, is confused by Karin's vulnerability and his own budding sexuality. Their father, David, cannot overcome his haughty remoteness. Beset by visions, Karin descends further into madness.
Through a Glass Darkly
A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.

In the midst of a civil war, a pair of former violinists in a tempestuous marriage oversee 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.

Traveling through an unnamed European country on the brink of war, sickly, intellectual Ester, her sister Anna and Anna's young son, Johan, check into a near-empty hotel. A basic inability to communicate among the three seems only to worsen during their stay. Anna provokes her sister by enjoying a dalliance with a local man, while the boy, left to himself, has a series of enigmatic encounters that heighten the growing air of isolation.

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

A recently divorced man and an emotionally devastated widow begin a love affair.

Scripted by Ingmar Bergman, this very personal film is about a destructive affair which wrecks the marriage of an actress (Marianne) and musician (Markus). Wanting to continue the affair, Marianne moves in with her lover. But she is tormented by Markus' decision not to let her have custody of their daughter. Finally Markus announces he may have a solution to the stalemate, but this leads to deception, lies and ultimately, tragedy.

A grieving couple retreats to their cabin 'Eden' in the woods, hoping to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse.

Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide with Earth.

The three sons of devout Danish farmer Morten have widely disparate religious beliefs. Youngest son Anders shares his father's religion, but eldest son Mikkel has lost his faith, while middle child Johannes has become delusional and proclaims that he is Jesus Christ himself. When Mikkel's wife, Inger goes into a difficult childbirth, everyone's beliefs are put to the test.

Called to court on obscenity charges, a theatre troupe are forced to expose their neuroses and inner psychological torments.

An English-German filmmaking couple retreat to Fårö for the summer to each write screenplays for their upcoming films in an act of pilgrimage to the place that inspired Ingmar Bergman. As the summer and their screenplays advance, the lines between reality and fiction start to blur against the backdrop of the Island's wild landscape.

Tom (8) and Benjamin (11) travel to Stockholm to spend the summer with their father, whom they have barely seen since he divorced their mother. Tom, in particular, knows next to nothing about this strange, solitary man who seems never to sleep. When he suggests they spend a few days at his cabin in the country, the boys are delighted. But the cabin is totally isolated in the middle of a huge forest, a place both beautiful and troubling.

An account of the events before and after a murder committed by a disturbed businessman in a strained marriage, and what led him to perform such a shocking act.

A pandemic strikes the world. What does quarantine do to a lonely woman's mind? Follow her from sense to insanity. No filters. Just you, her, and her more and more twisted mind.

Several friends travel to Sweden to study as anthropologists a summer festival that is held every ninety years in the remote hometown of one of them. What begins as a dream vacation in a place where the sun never sets, gradually turns into a dark nightmare as the mysterious inhabitants invite them to participate in their disturbing festive activities.

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.

As Agnes slowly dies of cancer, her sisters are so immersed in their own psychic pains that they are unable to offer her the support she needs.

When her husband goes missing at the beach, a female professor begins to mentally disintegrate as her denial of his disappearance becomes delusional.

On the outside, Helen has it all – a loving family and a successful career – but when her suppressed mental illness resurfaces, the world crumbles around her. Crippled by depression, Helen finds solace through her friendship with Mathilda, a kindred spirit struggling with bipolar disorder.

In a small, conservative Scottish village, an oilman is paralyzed in an accident. His wife, who prayed for his return, feels guilty; even more, when he urges her to have sex with another.

Having recently found God, self-effacing young nurse Maud arrives at a plush home to care for Amanda, a hedonistic dancer left frail from a chronic illness. When a chance encounter with a former colleague throws up hints of a dark past, it becomes clear there is more to sweet Maud than meets the eye.

Jess, a newly separated mother and nurse, moves into her old family farmhouse with Tyler, her teenage daughter, and Owen, her eight-year-old son. One night, the family dog senses something in the woods and runs off to find it. He returns a couple of days later and attacks Owen, savagely biting him before Jess is able to intervene. Owen is rushed to the hospital. His condition worsens, and no one can figure out why... until Jess discovers a disturbing cure...

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.

A mysterious teenager named Ángelo cares for Klaus, a German doctor with a dark past who lives trapped in an iron lung.

Following the death of the Leigh family matriarch, Annie and her children uncover disturbing secrets about their heritage. Their daily lives are not only impacted, but they also become entangled in a chilling fate from which they cannot escape, driving them to the brink of madness.

A successful artist loses control of his life after his young daughter's death. A chance for a new start appears, but all is not what it seems.

When Jane is rejected by life, she spirals into a chaotic, schizophrenic world where love and normality collide with humorous consequences.

Vincent Bruce, a war veteran, begins working as an occupational therapist at Poplar Lodge, a private psychiatric facility for wealthy people where he meets Lilith Arthur, a charming young woman suffering from schizophrenia, whose fragile beauty captivates all who meet her.

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

A reflection on human life in all its beauty and cruelty, its splendor and banality, guided by a Scheherazade-esque narrator. Inconsequential moments have the same significance as historical events. Simultaneously an ode and a lament, presents a kaleidoscope of all that is eternally human, an infinite story of the vulnerability of existence.

When a gloomy, God-fearing island community is rocked by the assault of an infant, a psychiatrist is called in to examine Dorothy Mills, the teenager accused of the crime. Despite the villagers' hostility to her inquiry, she soon comes to suspect that Dorothy suffers from multiple personality disorder...

A number of complicated relationships develop between a circus ringmaster, his estranged wife and his lover.

A young man, convinced he's a vampire, goes to live with his elderly and hostile cousin in a small Pennsylvanian town, where he tries to suppress his bloodlust.

Kristen, a troubled young woman, is captured by the police after burning down a farmhouse and is locked in the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. Soon, she begins to suspect that the place has a dark secret at its core and she's determined to find out what it is.

A Swedish housewife begins an adulterous affair with an American archaeologist, unaware of his emotional scars as a Holocaust survivor; consequently, their relationship will be painfully difficult.

Bruno is a young film editor who has just broke up his marriage with Regina, and returned living in his mother's house. Drowned in deep sorrow, something very weird happens in his life: people around him are gradually disappearing. But only for him. Some kind of blindness.

Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.

Sibyl, a jaded psychotherapist, returns to her first passion: writing. But her newest patient Margot, a troubled up-and-coming actress, proves to be a source of inspiration that is far too tempting. Fascinated almost to the point of obsession, Sibyl becomes more and more involved in Margot’s tumultuous life, reviving volatile memories that bring her face to face with her past.

The feeble-minded Sven's mother dies and he gets work as a farm-hand at the rich, affluent Höglund's farm. He has to work without pay and sleeps together with the cows. He meets the disabled Anna who is the first one to treat him as an adult. One day he has had enough of Höglund's maltreatment and moves in with Anna's family. Plot by Mattias Thuresson.

When Charlotte, 27, meets her brother Henrik, 35, for the first time as an adult, it becomes an encounter without boundaries, between two people who don't know what a normal family is. How does sibling love manifest itself if you have never experienced it before? Homesick is an unusual family drama about seeking a family, and breaking every rule to be one.

When Eve, an interior designer, is deserted by her husband of many years, Arthur, the emotionally glacial relationships of the three grown-up daughters are laid bare. Twisted by jealousy, insecurity and resentment, Renata, a successful writer; Joey, a woman crippled by indecision; and Flyn, a budding actress; struggle to communicate for the sake of their shattered mother. But when their father unexpectedly falls for another woman, his decision to remarry sets in motion a terrible twist of fate…

Secluded in a desolate forest, a broken family is observed by Sator, a supernatural entity who is attempting to claim them.

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 director and screenwriter pen a script and, in the process, blur the line between fiction and reality.

Mabel Longhetti, desperate and lonely, is married to a Los Angeles municipal construction worker, Nick. Increasingly unstable, especially in the company of others, she craves happiness, but her extremely volatile behavior convinces Nick that she poses a danger to their family and decides to commit her to an institution for six months. Alone with a trio of kids to raise on his own, he awaits her return, which holds more than a few surprises.

Successful surgeon Tomas leaves Prague for an operation, meets a young photographer named Tereza, and brings her back with him. Tereza is surprised to learn that Tomas is already having an affair with the bohemian Sabina, but when the Soviet invasion occurs, all three flee to Switzerland. Sabina begins an affair, Tom continues womanizing, and Tereza, disgusted, returns to Czechoslovakia. Realizing his mistake, Tomas decides to chase after her.

A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.

A traveling magician and his assistants are persecuted by authorities in 19th century Sweden. Their capture, however, didn't bring victory to those in power.

A young girl lost in the loneliness and boredom of reality finds solace in an ill boy, whom she can visit in a surreal dream world that she drew in her school composition book.

Anita, a young woman with a troubled childhood and a hunger for love, finds a soul mate in Erik, a kindly college student.

Crotchety retired doctor Isak Borg travels from Stockholm to Lund, Sweden, with his pregnant and unhappy daughter-in-law, Marianne, in order to receive an honorary degree from his alma mater. Along the way, they encounter a series of hitchhikers, each of whom causes the elderly doctor to muse upon the pleasures and failures of his own life. These include the vivacious young Sara, a dead ringer for the doctor's own first love.

Two different women – a young photo model and her boss – dream about a happy life with beloved men. Their dreams are as different as they are.

Elisabeth leaves her abusive and drunken husband Rolf, and goes to live with her brother, Göran. The year is 1975 and Göran lives in a commune called Together. Living in this leftist commune Elisabeth learns that the world can be viewed from different perspectives.

An absurdist, surrealistic and shocking pitch-black comedy, which moves freely from nightmare to fantasy to hilariously deadpan humour as it muses on man’s perpetual inhumanity to man.

Psychiatrist Sam Foster has a new patient, Henry Letham, who claims to be suicidal. In trying to diagnose him, Sam visits Henry's prior therapist and also finds Henry's mother -- even though Henry has said that he murdered both of his parents. As reality starts to contradict fact, Sam spirals into an unstable mental state. Then he finds a clue as to how and when Henry may try to kill himself, and races to try to stop him.

After a young woman and her parents are murdered by a killer determined to wipe out the entire family, Detective Inspector Joona Linna works with a psychiatrist to hypnotize the son who narrowly escaped death in order to find the one surviving daughter before the murderer does.

When Baldvin and Inga's next door neighbours complain that a tree in their backyard casts a shadow over their sundeck, what starts off as a typical spat between neighbours in the suburbs unexpectedly and violently spirals out of control.

A female psychologist wants to understand the minds of a confessed serial killer who spent the last five years in a mental hospital because of his state.

14-year-old Lulu moves to a small provincial town with her mother and younger brother. One night, her brother is struck by a beam of white light - actually the spirit of Herman Hartmann from the 19th-century. To her despair, Lulu realizes that Herman has possessed her brother, and the two of them are whirled into a fevered adventure.

Three women in a maternity ward share their lives and intimate thoughts, and face the choice of keeping their babies or offering them for adoption.

Having recently lost her sight, Ingrid retreats to the safety of her home—a place where she can feel in control, alone with her husband and her thoughts. After a while, Ingrid starts to feel the presence of her husband in the flat when he is supposed to be at work. At the same time, her lonely neighbor who has grown tired of even the most extreme pornography shifts his attention to a woman across the street. Ingrid knows about this but her real problems lie within, not beyond the walls of her apartment, and her deepest fears and repressed fantasies soon take over.

In several unrelated stories, the consequences of putting one's foot down – or failing to do so – are explored.

Devout Christians Töre and Märeta send their only daughter, the virginal Karin, and their foster daughter, the unrepentant Ingeri, to deliver candles to a distant church. On their way through the woods, the girls encounter a group of savage goat herders who brutally rape and murder Karin as Ingeri remains hidden. When the killers unwittingly seek refuge in the farmhouse of Töre and Märeta, Töre plots a fitting revenge.

Grazia is a free-spirited mother-of-three married to shy fisherman Pietro and living on the idyllic but isolated island of Lampedusa in the Mediterranean Sea. She shows signs of manic depressive behavior — one moment she's laughing wildly and swimming half-naked in the sea, while the next she's curled in a ball on her bed. Out of her earshot, the adult members of her extended family vaguely discuss sending her to a facility of some sort in Northern Italy.

A true story of a young woman whose abusive childhood results in her developing a multiple personality disorder.

One summer day, two teens begin a reckless affair and abandon their families to be with one another.

A recovering drug addict is granted a day’s leave from rehab and returns to Oslo, where he reconnects with friends, faces the weight of his past, and struggles with uncertainty about his future. Over the course of one day, he drifts through encounters that reflect his longing for connection and his deep sense of alienation.

Traveling on a ferry heading to the island of Hierro where they will spend their holidays, Mary loses her son Diego, and no one can explain what happened. Six months later, Maria struggles to overcome the pain of loss and continue his life. Then, you receive an unexpected phone call: they found the body of a child, so it must return to the island. There, in the suggestive and disturbing landscape, surrounded by disturbing and sinister characters, Mary is forced to confront their worst nightmares. And as he travels this road, he discovers that some mysteries should not be disclosed ...

Samuel, a boy who lives with his mother Elena in Villa dei Laghi, an isolated manor surrounded by woods, feels trapped in the family routine, growing up seemingly protected, but unsatisfied and restless.

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.

A young woman left her family for an unspecified reason. The husband determines to find out the truth and starts following his wife. At first, he suspects that a man is involved. But gradually, he finds out more and more strange behaviors and bizarre incidents that indicate something more than a possessed love affair.

Five years after an ominous unseen presence drives most of society to suicide, a survivor and her two children make a desperate bid to reach safety.

A college student starts to experience extreme seizures. She soon learns that the violent episodes are a symptom of inexplicable abilities.

Theresa, a haunted young woman spiraling in the wake of profound loss, is torn between her fractured emotional state and the reality-altering effects of a potent cannabinoid drug.

The film tells different stories in a kind of parallel Germany about love, affection and hatred.

A young girl is raised in a dysfunctional family constantly on the run from the FBI. Living in poverty, she comes of age guided by her drunkard, ingenious father who distracts her with magical stories to keep her mind off the family's dire state, and her selfish, nonconformist mother who has no intention of raising a family, along with her younger brother and sister, and her other older sister. Together, they fend for each other as they mature in an unorthodox journey that is their family life.

After a 15-year marriage, a couple readies for divorce but suddenly realize that their feelings haven't vanished yet.

When a deadly secret rots the mind of a grieving widower, the decision to work alone on a deserted island morphs into a terrifying race to save his sanity and his life.

Ana is confronted with body and desire at three key moments of her life. As a young girl, she brings her dead grandpa back to life. In her puberty, she discovers the power of decay and sexuality. Finally, she wrestles with loss and loneliness when she returns to her parental home, now derelict.

Jack Torrance accepts a caretaker job at the Overlook Hotel, where he, along with his wife Wendy and their son Danny, must live isolated from the rest of the world for the winter. But they aren't prepared for the madness that lurks within.

A follow-up to Scenes from a Marriage (1973); some thirty years after divorcing Johan, Marianne decides to visit her ex-husband at his summer home. She arrives in the middle of a family drama between Johan's son from another marriage and his granddaughter.

As children, Nick and his little brother take care of their baby brother while their mother drinks herself senseless. But the baby dies, and both brothers blame themselves. Many years later, Nick is out of prison after serving time for an assault. He drinks, lives in a shelter and tries to help an old friend. When their mother dies, Nick meets his brother at the funeral. The brother, who remains nameless, is a single father to a young boy, but also supports a drug habit that is spiraling out of control. When an opportunity presents itself, he becomes a drug dealer to secure his son's future. Eventually, the two brothers meet again.

A Danish family visits a Dutch family they met on a holiday. What was supposed to be an idyllic weekend slowly starts unraveling as the Danes try to stay polite in the face of unpleasantness.

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.

While holidaying in the French Alps, a Swedish family deals with acts of cowardliness as an avalanche breaks out.

A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.

A young woman is lured to an island paradise, where she is drawn into a dark world of pleasure, pain, and murder under the control of a sinister figure.

A psychotherapist journeys inside a comatose serial killer in the hopes of saving his latest victim.

Jack Slavin is an environmentalist with a heart condition who lives with his daughter, Rose, on an isolated island. While Jack fights against developers who wish to build in the area, he also craves more contact with other people. When he invites his girlfriend, Kathleen, and her sons, Rodney and Thaddius, to move in, Rose is upset. The complicated family dynamics makes things difficult for everyone in the house.

Mort Rainey, a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe who claims Rainey swiped his best story idea. But as Rainey endeavors to prove his innocence, he begins to question his own sanity.

During a brief summer vacation, a lonely woman recalls her first love thirteen years earlier.

Three teenagers are confined to an isolated country estate that could very well be on another planet. The trio spend their days listening to endless homemade tapes that teach them a whole new vocabulary. Any word that comes from beyond their family abode is instantly assigned a new meaning. Hence 'the sea' refers to a large armchair and 'zombies' are little yellow flowers. Having invented a brother whom they claim to have ostracized for his disobedience, the uber-controlling parents terrorize their offspring into submission.

Following a terrible car crash, a woman awakes to find an enigmatic mortician preparing her for burial.

Because of the actions of her irresponsible parents, a young girl is left alone on a decrepit country estate and survives inside her fantastic imagination.

When the citizens of a small evangelical town systematically begin committing suicide, a young girl struggling to reconcile her Christian upbringing with her desire to experience the outside world finds her faith put to the ultimate test.

A group of families on a tropical holiday discover that the secluded beach where they are staying is somehow causing them to age rapidly – reducing their entire lives into a single day.


