Release CalendarTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV News
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb SpotlightIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsCannes Film FestivalStar WarsAsian Pacific American Heritage MonthSummer Watch GuideSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • Language
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Watchlist
Sign In
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Use app
  • Biography
  • Awards
  • Trivia
  • FAQ
IMDbPro

Max von Sydow(1929-2020)

  • Actor
  • Additional Crew
  • Director
IMDbProStarmeterTop 5,000765
Max von Sydow at an event for Bad Education (2004)
Based on the true events of the 1943 Massacre of Kalavryta, Greece.
Play trailer2:13
Echoes of the Past (2021)
95 Videos
99+ Photos
Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929 in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family. He was the son of Baroness Maria Margareta (Rappe), a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. His surname traces back to his partial German ancestry.

When he was in high school, he and a few fellow students, including Yvonne Lombard, started a theatre club which encouraged his interest in acting. After conscription, he began to study at the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school (1948-1951), together with Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. His first role was as Nils the crofter in Alf Sjöberg's Only a Mother (1949). After graduation, he worked at the city theatres in Norrköping and Malmö.

His work in the movies by Ingmar Bergman (especially The Seventh Seal (1957), including the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death) made him well-known internationally, and he started to get offers from abroad. His career abroad began with him playing Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); Hawaii (1966) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966). Since then, his career includes very different kind of characters, like Karl Oskar Nilsson in The Emigrants (1971); Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist (1973); Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor (1975), Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon (1980); the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Never Say Never Again (1983); Liet-Kynes in Dune (1984) the artist Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror (1987), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; Dr. Peter Ingham in Awakenings (1990); Lamar Burgess in Minority Report (2002) and The Renter in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), which earned him his second Academy Award nomination.

He became one of Sweden's most admired and professional actors, and is the only male Swedish actor to receive an Oscar nomination. He was nominated twice: for Pelle the Conqueror (1987) in 1988 and for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) in 2012. He received the Guldbagge Award for Best Director in his directing debut, the drama film Ved vejen (1988). In 2016, he joined the sixth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) as the Three-eyed Raven, which earned him his Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

Max von Sydow died on March 8, 2020, in Provence, France, and was survived by his wife Catherine Brelet and four children. He was 90.
BornApril 10, 1929
DiedMarch 8, 2020(90)
BornApril 10, 1929
DiedMarch 8, 2020(90)
IMDbProStarmeterTop 5,000765
  • Nominated for 2 Oscars
    • 28 wins & 26 nominations total

Remembering Max von Sydow (1929-2020)

Remembering Max von Sydow (1929-2020)

Look back at photos from The Seventh Seal and more movies from Max von Sydow's legendary career.
Editorial Image
Photos

Photos409

View Poster
View Poster
View Poster
View Poster
View Poster
View Poster
+ 403
View Poster

Known for

Brian Blessed, Max von Sydow, and Sam J. Jones in Flash Gordon (1980)
Flash Gordon
6.5
  • The Emperor Ming(as Max Von Sydow)
  • 1980
The Seventh Seal (1957)
The Seventh Seal
8.1
  • Antonius Block
  • 1957
Tom Cruise in Minority Report (2002)
Minority Report
7.6
  • Director Lamar Burgess
  • 2002
Thomas Horn in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
6.9
  • The Renter
  • 2011

Credits

Edit
IMDbPro

Actor



  • Echoes of the Past (2021)
    Echoes of the Past
    6.4
    • Nikolas Andreou (aged)
    • 2021
  • Colin Firth and Matthias Schoenaerts in The Command (2018)
    The Command
    6.6
    • Vladimir Petrenko
    • 2018
  • Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2016)
    Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens
    7.6
    Video Game
    • Lor San Tekka (voice)
    • 2016
  • Game of Thrones (2011)
    Game of Thrones
    9.2
    TV Series
    • Three-Eyed Raven (as Max Von Sydow)
    • 2016
  • Bouli Lanners and Albert Dupontel in The First, the Last (2016)
    The First, the Last
    6.3
    • Le croque-mort
    • 2016
  • Harrison Ford, Anthony Daniels, Carrie Fisher, Kenny Baker, Michael Giacchino, Peter Mayhew, Nigel Godrich, Oscar Isaac, Brian Herring, Lupita Nyong'o, Dave Chapman, Adam Driver, Gwendoline Christie, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley in Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
    Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens
    7.8
    • Lor San Tekka
    • 2015
  • Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Dan Castellaneta, and Yeardley Smith in The Simpsons (1989)
    The Simpsons
    8.6
    TV Series
    • Klaus Ziegler (voice)
    • 2014
  • Juliet Stevenson in The Letters (2014)
    The Letters
    6.2
    • Father Celeste van Exem
    • 2014
  • Dragons 3D (2013)
    Dragons 3D
    5.5
    Short
    • Dr. Alistair Conis
    • 2013
  • Branded (2012)
    Branded
    4.6
    • Marketing Guru
    • 2012
  • Thomas Horn in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011)
    Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
    6.9
    • The Renter
    • 2011
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011)
    The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
    9.3
    Video Game
    • Esbern (voice)
    • 2011
  • The Last Norwegian Troll (2010)
    The Last Norwegian Troll
    6.8
    Short
    • The Last Norwegian Troll (voice)
    • 2010
  • Moomins and the Comet Chase (2010)
    Moomins and the Comet Chase
    6.0
    • Narrator (voice)
    • 2010
  • Russell Crowe in Robin Hood (2010)
    Robin Hood
    6.6
    • Sir Walter Loxley
    • 2010

Additional Crew



  • Bending Colours (2012)
    Bending Colours
    6.4
    Short
    • legal counsel
    • 2012
  • John Rabe (2009)
    John Rabe
    7.2
    • legal affairs: Hofmann & Voges Entertainment
    • 2009
  • Wo ist Fred? (2006)
    Wo ist Fred?
    6.3
    • legal advisor: Hofmann & Voges
    • 2006
  • Night of the Living Dorks (2004)
    Night of the Living Dorks
    5.6
    • production secretary
    • 2004

Director



  • Kurt Ravn and Tammi Øst in Ved vejen (1988)
    Ved vejen
    5.8
    • Director
    • 1988

Videos95

"Sense of Calm" from Shutter Island
Clip 0:49
"Sense of Calm" from Shutter Island
"Arriving" from Shutter Island
Clip 0:51
"Arriving" from Shutter Island
"Arriving" from Shutter Island
Clip 0:51
"Arriving" from Shutter Island
The Night Visitor
Clip 2:42
The Night Visitor
Death Watch
Clip 2:19
Death Watch
Robin Hood
Clip 0:45
Robin Hood
Robin Hood
Clip 0:37
Robin Hood

Personal details

Edit
  • Official site
    • Facebook
  • Alternative name
    • Max Von Sydow
  • Height
    • 6′ 3½″ (1.92 m)
  • Born
    • April 10, 1929
    • Lund, Skåne län, Sweden
  • Died
    • March 8, 2020
    • Seillans, Var, France(undisclosed causes)
  • Spouses
      Catherine BreletApril 30, 1997 - March 8, 2020 (his death, 2 children)
  • Children
      Adopted Child
  • Parents
      Maria Margareta Rappe
  • Other works
    (4/5/62) Radio: Played "The Stranger" in August Strindberg's play "Brända Tomten" for the Swedish Radio Theatre.
  • Publicity listings
    • 1 Biographical Movie
    • 1 Print Biography
    • 6 Interviews
    • 6 Articles
    • 1 Magazine Cover Photo

Did you know

Edit
  • Trivia
    Fluent in a number of languages, including Swedish, English, French and Italian.
  • Quotes
    The theater is more a medium for an actor than the cinema is. You are totally responsible for what you do on the stage; in a film, someone else can come in and edit you and do something totally different to what you had in mind originally, and they can cut you out, play around with the scenes or the chronology of the story. This happens always-more or less-in the cinema. On the stage, you deliver a performance and that is your responsibility. So filmmaking is much more a director's medium than it is an actor's.
  • Trademarks
      Deep commanding voice

FAQ14

Powered by Alexa
  • When did Max von Sydow die?
  • How did Max von Sydow die?
  • How old was Max von Sydow when he died?

Related news

Contribute to this page

Suggest an edit or add missing content
  • Learn more about contributing
Edit page

More to explore

Recently viewed

Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
Get the IMDb app
Sign in for more accessSign in for more access
Follow IMDb on social
Get the IMDb app
For Android and iOS
Get the IMDb app
  • Help
  • Site Index
  • IMDbPro
  • Box Office Mojo
  • License IMDb Data
  • Press Room
  • Advertising
  • Jobs
  • Conditions of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Your Ads Privacy Choices
IMDb, an Amazon company

© 1990-2025 by IMDb.com, Inc.