Yeah, Bergman's stock has fallen very much in recent decades but I agree with you: his movies are usually great - and often funny too, if you like your humor dark. I don't care what Jonathan Rosenbaum and them other fashionable-with-the-champs critics think.
I too have seen a pair of "classic" '58s that live up to their reputation: Cairo Station and Big Deal on Madonna Street. Cairo Station in particular is just a wonder of taking things to excess. Terrific!
Two movies that aren't as well known:
The Eighth Day of the Week (Aleksander Ford), starring the great Zbigniew Cybulski - who, along with Ashes and Diamonds, had a heck of a year, though his performance here is much more subdued and he takes a back seat to Sonja Zeimann. Made in '58 but banned by Polish censors and only released there in '83 because of its bleak picture of postwar Polish youth and their prospects (: nil). Handsomely shot, would like to see a better copy than the currently available TV rip. Here's Zeimann, who later married troubled, hard-living author of the book on which Eighth Day is based Marek Hlasko (who, like Cybulski, was compared to James Dean in his day and died young under mysterious circumstances), in her cups:
But best of all, my "find" of '58 so far, Károly Makk's
House under the Rocks.
Chap returns from Soviet POW camp nearly dead, finds his wife has died while he was away, is nursed back to health by his hunchback sister-in-law who's always been in love with him, and, strength recovered, decides to find himself a wife. It all ends badly. What I liked about the movie, aside from the striking b/w cinematography, is that none of the three main characters is a villain, they're all decent folk thwarted by circumstances, which makes how things play out much more effective. I only realized while watching this that even though several of them are available subtitled, this is only the second Makk movie I've seen after Love (1971) - which I love! So certainly ought to see a few more.
Have a look at all the picnics of the intellect: These conceptions! These discoveries! Perspectives! Subtleties! Publications! Congresses! Discussions! Institutes! Universities! Yet: one senses nothing but stupidity. - Gombrowicz, Diary