The Phantom Carriage

Victor Sjöström's Swedish masterpiece is one of cinema's great ghost stories — and one of its first explorations of the tormented soul. On New Year's Eve, a bitter alcoholic named David Holm collapses in a graveyard and is visited by a spectral coachman who collects the souls of the dead. Through a series of flashbacks nested inside flashbacks, the film peels back David's life to reveal how cruelty and addiction destroyed everyone who loved him. The double-exposure photography — ghostly figures moving through the living world — was staggeringly advanced for 1921, and the emotional weight is enormous. Ingmar Bergman called it the film that shaped his entire career. Stanley Kubrick borrowed its axe-through-the-door scene for The Shining. This is where Scandinavian cinema found its dark, searching soul.