---
title: "Cries and Whispers"
year: 1972
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/cries-and-whispers"
fi1m_score: 87
critics_score: 78
critics_reviews: 10
published: "2026-09-16T10:43:11.329608+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-16T10:43:11.878389+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Cries and Whispers (1972)

Directed by Ingmar Bergman · 1h 35m · MPA R · Drama

**Fi1m score: 87** · Critics 78 from 10 reviews

*In a sentence:* The red walls are the least troubling thing about this family gathering

> Ingmar Bergman makes *Cries and Whispers* a harrowing study of care that we recommend with a warning about its severity. The four leads give the women more life than their rather schematic roles promise.

## Synopsis

Agnes (Harriet Andersson) is dying in a manor house whose rooms are painted red. Her sisters Maria (Liv Ullmann) and Karin (Ingrid Thulin) attend her alongside the maid Anna (Kari Sylwan), with the women dressed in white against the walls. Agnes needs care and relief from her suffering, but being together offers no easy comfort. The sisters bring their estrangement into the sickroom, while Anna offers a tenderness they struggle to provide. The practical demands of looking after Agnes expose how difficult these women find it to reach one another, even when they are under the same roof.

## Review

*Cries and Whispers* is a difficult film to sit through, and a fine one, because Ingmar Bergman takes the ordinary obligation to care for somebody and makes us feel how much it can demand. Agnes is dying in a manor house, attended by her sisters Maria and Karin and the maid Anna. The task seems plain enough: stay nearby, offer comfort, bear witness to pain that cannot be removed. Bergman is interested in why even this much can defeat a family.

Harriet Andersson gives Agnes an immediate claim on our attention that makes grand explanations of the film seem beside the point. We were distressed by Agnes’s suffering because Andersson makes her need for comfort so urgent, with no assurance that her family can meet it. The sisters’ presence offers little reassurance when they find tenderness so difficult. Bergman makes the uncertainty of their care almost as painful to watch as the illness itself.

Liv Ullmann as Maria and Ingrid Thulin as Karin make the sisters’ estrangement painful without making it easy to excuse. There is enough recognisable family discomfort in their performances to prevent every failure of tenderness from looking like a special case devised for a grim drama. Kari Sylwan, as Anna, gives the film its clearest example of compassion, and also exposes a weakness in the writing. With the maid so firmly associated with care, and the sisters with their inability to offer it, the distinctions between them can become too tidy.

Sven Nykvist’s cinematography and Marik Vos-Lundh’s production design make the red rooms feel oppressive even without an explanation of the family’s grievances. The white clothes, also designed by Marik Vos-Lundh, stand out against those walls with an insistence that can be tiring; little in the image allows us to forget the suffering. We think the colour works because it makes the house difficult to settle into, keeping the discomfort present even when our attention wanders from the women. It is also where Bergman comes closest to doing too much.

Siv Lundgren’s editing sustains a meditative pace, keeping attention on the women rather than promising relief through incident. At 95 minutes, the film is short enough, but its concentration can make it feel much longer. That is largely right for a drama about the difficulty of remaining with another person’s pain. Still, when the red imagery keeps pressing the same point, we become conscious of how firmly Bergman is directing our response.

Within the family drama, Bergman chooses a particularly severe test of affection: whether it can survive prolonged exposure to helplessness. We recognise the expectation that relatives should somehow know how to help, and the shame when they do not. That gives the film a reach beyond its period rooms, without needing to turn the women into representatives of all human suffering. We would have preferred a little more room for their muddle and a little less certainty about what each represents.

Choose it for an evening when there is time to pay attention and no need to be cheered up. We would not put it on simply because its 95 minutes fit a gap before bed. Allow some quiet afterwards.

*Fi1m score 87, published 16 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics respond strongly to Bergman’s study of estrangement, repression and mortality, finding its emotional force disturbing but often moving. Praise centres on the dominant red interiors and the cinematography, which make the sisters’ suffering and failed attempts at intimacy feel oppressive and immediate. The reviews also value the contrast between familial bitterness and Anna’s compassion, while the four lead performances draw praise for giving the anguish a recognisable human weight.

The spread is wide despite nine of the ten reviews being positive, with disagreement turning chiefly on whether the imagery deepens the drama or overwhelms it. Time Out admires the visual appeal but finds that form sometimes overshadows content. Slant Magazine supplies the lone negative assessment, arguing that the red symbolism and religious suffering lack depth and that the craftsmanship becomes manipulative; most critics instead find the film’s emotional impact persuasive.

### Reviews we read (10)

- **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (90/100, inferred): The film is hypnotic, disturbing and frightening, enveloping viewers in a red membrane of passion and fear. It communicates on a deep level of human feeling through scenes of Anna embracing the dying Agnes and the sisters' failed attempt to connect. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/cries-and-whispers-1973)
- **The New Yorker**, Pauline Kael (90/100, inferred): The film has oracular power and feels like a nineteenth-century European masterwork in a twentieth-century art form. It is set in a manor house where a woman dies of cancer, with Bergman dividing the women into schematic roles and achieving a supernal quality through cinematography reminiscent of Munch. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1973/01/06/flesh)
- **The New York Times**, Vincent Canby (90/100, inferred): Bergman's new film is magnificent, moving and very mysterious, with a focus so sharp it seems seen through fever. It offers an extremely disturbing but ultimately touching study of human communication and the soul searching for love. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/22/archives/bergmans-new-cries-and-whispers.html)
- **The Times**, Kevin Maher (★★★★☆): The critic finds Bergman at his most brilliant and brutal in this psychodrama about three sisters and emotional repression. The film exposes the lies of polite society through its red interiors and disturbing climax of self-mutilation. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/cries-and-whispers-1972-review-a-disturbing-and-brutal-sibling-psychodrama-6vd75sc56)
- **Empire**, David Parkinson (75/100, inferred): The review highlights Bergman's success in crafting an intense study of solitude, disappointment, godlessness and death through the feuding sisters and the compassionate maid Anna. It singles out the dominant red colour scheme and the film's evocation of the soul as a red monster for particular note. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/cries-whispers-review/)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Andy Klein (70/100, inferred): Bergman came roaring back with this film solidly in the existential/emotional angst mode of his best work. Memories and long-simmering conflicts bubble up in the story of the dying woman attended by her sisters and maid. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/socal/glendale-news-press/entertainment/andy-klein/tn-gnp-dvd-review-bergmans-angst-cries-on-bluray-20150403-story.html)
- **Time Out**, VG (70/100, inferred): The critic views the film primarily as psychodrama rather than religious allegory, praising its visual seductiveness while noting that form sometimes overshadows content. Specific scenes, such as one character being undressed by her maid, are singled out as powerfully conveying themes of repression and disguise. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/cries-and-whispers)
- **Slant Magazine**, Clayton Dillard (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film overly reliant on symbolic red imagery and Christ-like suffering without sufficient depth or historical context, preferring Bergman's more reflexive earlier works like Persona. Praises the Criterion transfer but faults the film's manipulative craftsmanship. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/cries-and-whispers/)
- **Eye for Film**, Trinity (5/5): The critic describes the film as a hypnotic dream play and high point for Bergman, praising its vivid despair, exquisite cinematography by Sven Nykvist, period detail in the red-hued rooms, and strong performances by the four lead actresses as a masterful portrayal of estrangement. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/cries-and-whispers-film-review-by-trinity)
- **Collider**, Andre Dellamorte (70/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a meditative and searing portrait of death and the color red that is resonant and the definition of art cinema, though not easy viewing. The intense focus on familial relations and the acceptance of mortality stands out as particularly powerful. [Read](https://collider.com/criterion-blu-ray-reviews-sullivans-travels-cries-and-whispers-hoop-dreams/)

## Details

- **Director:** Ingmar Bergman
- **Director:** Ingmar Bergman
- **Screenplay:** Ingmar Bergman
- **Cinematography:** Sven Nykvist
- **Editor:** Siv Lundgren
- **Production design:** Marik Vos-Lundh
- **Costume design:** Marik Vos-Lundh
- **Producer:** Lars-Owe Carlberg, Ingmar Bergman
- **Cast:** Liv Ullmann as Maria; Ingrid Thulin as Karin; Kari Sylwan as Anna; Harriet Andersson as Agnes; Erland Josephson as David; Georg Årlin as Fredrik; Anders Ek as Isak; Henning Moritzen as Joakim
- **Runtime:** 1h 35m
- **Certificate (MPA):** R
- **Release (the US):** 21 December 1972
- **Genres:** Drama
- **Budget:** $400,000
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc8f9ZlMnTU

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming, leaving 2026-09-30
- The Roku Channel: add-on, hd
- Hulu: add-on, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $19.99, hd

*Checked 2026-09-16.*

Also available in: AT, BE, BR, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, GB, IT, NO, SE, TR, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Academy Awards 1974: Best Costume Design (nominated); Best Picture (nominated); Best Cinematography (won)

## If you liked this

- *Autumn Sonata* (1978): Another family reckoning where an attempted reunion makes old injuries harder to ignore.
- *Tokyo Story* (1953), Fi1m 92: Family obligation measured through small acts of neglect and the patience of ageing parents. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/tokyo-story.md)
- *Amour* (2012), Fi1m 88: Care becomes daily labour, with love offering no easy protection against physical decline. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/amour.md)
- *A Woman Under the Influence* (1974): A household tries to help a suffering woman and makes its own fears visible.
- *The Quiet Girl* (2022): A quieter study of care, where ordinary kindness can carry enormous emotional weight.

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/cries-and-whispers