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.

A young woman gets tired of society's patriarchal order and women's sexual bondage.

An eccentric Parisian woman's optimistic perception of life begins to sound more rational than the traditional beliefs of others. The story is set in a 20th-century society endangered by power and greed and imagines the rebellion of the "little people" against corrupt and soulless authority.

A train stops at a station in a small town. An accident has occurred and some freight cars have overturned, which stops the railway traffic. At the same time, some young people are breaking into a weapons depot, something that will have fatal consequences.

The married detective couple John and Kajsa Hillman goes on a vacation to Holmfors mill where a friend of Kajsa's lives with her husband. When a young woman is found murdered it is clear that this is another case for the Hillmans.

This is a story that is less a developed tale than a thumbnail sketch about imaginary events on a kibbutz in Palestine. Set in the period just before Israel gained its status as an independent nation, the drama shows the occupants of the kibbutz engaged in typical hard work. They have to find a source of water, construct their buildings, and do all the chores needed to stay alive, and these pressures as well as the times in which they live cause tensions to rise. The mix of kibbutzim covers a wide range of personality types, from the deeply religious to the ingrained soldier.