Max von Sydow's character is named Antonius Block. Despite him being the main character of the film, this name is only ever used twice in the entire movie.
Ingmar Bergman based the entire iconography of the movie on murals in a church where his clergyman father used to go and preach.
Both Van Halen and Scott Walker (from his album Scott 4) have named a song after this film, both are inspired by the Bergman film. The Van Halen one also mentions The Virgin Spring.
Of the 50+ films he has done, this is one of Ingmar Bergman's own rare favorites.
The chess pieces used in the movie was sold from Ingmar Bergman's descendent's estate in 2009 for 1m Swedish Krona (around USD$145,000 at the time).
The church which Jöns and Antonius Block arrives at 15 minutes into the film is actually a model hung in the dead tree in the foreground.
The inspiration for this film was said to be drawn from the period films of Akira Kurosawa, of which Ingmar Bergman was a big fan.
The last-but-one scene in which Death is dancing away with his followers was shot when some of the actors had gone home for the day, using some technicians and a few tourists as stand-ins.
The name of the character played by Gunnel Lindblom is never given and she speaks no lines in the film until the penultimate scene where she has the final line of the group being taken by Death: "It is finished."
The procession of flagellants chant the Dies Irae, a famous thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano. Before stopping in the village they chant stanzas 1-4 and the Lacrimosa, stanza 18. These are repeated as the procession departs.
The title is a Biblical quotation from The Revelation of St. John the Divine, chapter 8.