Hour of the Wolf
1968 Swedish film by Ingmar Bergman
Hour of the Wolf (Swedish: Vargtimmen, lit. 'The Wolf Hour') is a 1968 Swedish psychological horror film directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Max von Sydow and Liv Ullmann. The story explores the disappearance of fictional painter Johan Borg (von Sydow), who lived on an island with his wife Alma (Ullmann) while plagued with frightening visions and insomnia.
Bergman originally conceived much of the story as part of an unproduced screenplay, The Cannibals, which he abandoned to make the 1966 film Persona. He took inspiration from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's 1791 opera The Magic Flute and E. T. A. Hoffmann's 1814 novella The Golden Pot, as well as some of his own nightmares. Principal photography took place at Hovs Hallar, Stockholm and Fårö.
Themes include insanity, particularly as experienced by an artist, sexuality, and relationships, conveyed in a surreal style and with elements of folklore. Analysts have found allusions to vampire and werewolf legend. Authors have also connected the work to Bergman's life and his relationship with Ullmann; Bergman said he was experiencing his own "hour of the wolf" when he conceived the story.
The film was initially met with negative reviews in Sweden. In later years Hour of the Wolf received generally positive reviews and was ranked one of the 50 greatest films ever made in a 2012 directors' poll by the British Film Institute.
“Hour of the Wolf” enters the record as 1968 Swedish film by Ingmar Bergman. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Hour, Wolf and Swedish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q918111. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 4 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968, 1966, 1791 and 1814.
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This entry incorporates text from “Hour of the Wolf” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.