Bergman stormed both the Academy Awards ceremonies and world's top film festivals with each of his films year after year. Three of his films won the Oscars for the Best Foreign Films - Virgin Spring in 1961, Through A Glass Darkly in 1962, and Fanny and Alexander in 1984. He was honoured with the Irving Thalberg Memorial Award by the Academy in 1971. But, ask any Film and Television Institute graduate and he would swear by the magic of Bergman in films like Summer with Monika (1953), Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries (1957) Persona (1966), Cries and Whispers (1973), Autumn Sonata ( 1978). He directed a total of 62 films and 170 plays, giving world cinema actors like Liv Ullman, Max von Sydow.