The Outlaw and His Wife

When a mysterious stranger (played by Sjostrom) is hired on at a farm by its widowed owner (Edith Erastoff, who would later become Sjostrom's wife), a romantic bond quickly forms. But the man's troubled past foils their chances at happiness, and forces them to seek refuge in the nearby mountains. Sjostrom's masterful use of landscape is visually and dramatically stunning, particularly in the film's latter half, as the couple battles both their pursuers and nature itself, culminating in an unforgettable climax. A masterpiece of the Swedish silent cinema, Victor Sjostrom's The Outlaw and His Wife is a film of remarkable psychological complexity, which bore a profound influence on the work of Ingmar Bergman and Carl Theodor Dreyer.