When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof and his wife, Mia, and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.

Åke is employed as a singer in a revue tour and his uncle Karlsson becomes the tour bus driver.

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

While Bertil Lindström works at the Swedish embassy in Paris, his wife Gabrielle spends the summer alone in Sweden. After a phone call to her, he starts to think of all the things she can possibly be doing separated from him.

A ring passes between a lot of different people, giving the bearer or someone close a new meaning to life. Actors, embezzlers, old ladies and cheated husbands all seem to gain temporary hope from misery and disillusionment.

Sören, a poor tailor with many children, dreams of becoming a miller and buys the windmill of the village with money he does not have.

Two twins, separated at birth, meet again by chance many years later. One is a progressive but insensitive mayor of a small town, the other a clown at a circus.

Theatre director Freddy Alsterberg has failed with his latest operetta. He decides to work his way over the Atlantic. His niece Tusse also stows away on the ship disguised as a boy.

Television adaptation of Chekhov's story about the spoiled widow Madame Ranevskaya.

While Bertil Lindström works at the Swedish embassy in Paris, his wife Gabrielle spends the summer alone in Sweden. After a phone call to her, he starts to think of all the things she can possibly be doing separated from him.