The career of Ingrid Bergman reminds us that not all classic movies hold up — because of how remarkably her films do.
The star of Casablanca, Notorious and other masterpieces — and three-time Oscar winner — was born in 1915 in Stockholm to a Swedish father and German mother. She went on to become one of the most iconic actors of all time, starring in many films that still feel as relevant today as they were decades ago.
Let’s look back at just five of them.
Casablanca (1942)
Stunningly time when it was released at the height of World War II, Casablanca has somehow never gone out of style — because of its celebration of freedom and resistance, yes, but also because of its crackling dialogue and the unmatched chemistry between its leads, Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.
She plays Ilsa Lund, who one night in Casablanca enters the Rick’s Cafe, which just so happens to be owned by her ex-lover, Rick Blaine. The problem: She’s now with Victor Laszlo (Paul Henreid) a Czech Resistance leader battling the Nazis.
Rick and Ilsa still have strong feelings for each other, but must ultimately decide whether to act on them or sublimate them for the greater good. Bergman and Bogart make it feel like a very difficult choice — which makes the film’s final outcome all the more heroic.
A Best Picture winner, Casablanca has only gone up since in the appraisal of most film lovers.
Notorious (1946)
Another film tied to World War II, Notorious finds Ingrid Bergman playing Alicia Huberman, the daughter of a German war criminal who is enlisted by U.S. agent T.R. Devlin (Cary Grant) to help infiltrate a group of Nazis who fled to Brazil after World War II.
Things become complicated when she’s asked to seduce one of the targets — even after she and Devlin have apparently fallen for each other.
For much of the film, Alicia — and Bergman — keep her loyalties very much in question. Bergman and director Alfred Hitchcock walk an impressive narrative tightrope in a fast-moving, elegant thriller featuring one of the most complex female leads in cinematic history. Notorious is one of her three collaborations with Hitchcock, the others being 1945’s Spellbound (1945), and 1949’s Under Capricorn.
Gaslight (1944)
Adapted from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light — and remaking the British film Gaslight — this American version finds Bergman playing Paula Alquist Anton, whose husband (played by Charles Boyer) manipulates her into believing she may be insane.
It’s another demanding role for Bergman, who must maintain the audiences sympathies through a state of manipulated confusion, and Oscar voters rewarded her with the first of her two Oscars for Best Actress. (She won again in 1956 for Anastasia, and won her Best Supporting Actress Oscar for Murder on the Orient Express in 1974.)
Like Casablanca — scenes of which still turn up frequently as memes — Gaslight remains so influential in modern expression that “gaslight” remains a modern term for people accused of manipulating reality.
Stromboli (1950)
The neorealist drama Stromboli is a pleasure to watch at a surface level: It tells the story of a Lithuanian woman (Bergman) who meets an Italian man (Mario Vitale) at an internment camp, and journeys with him to his home island, which is very different than she expects.
Stromboli is even more fascinating when you keep in mind the behind the scenes story of the film. It was born from Ingrid Bergman writing a letter to director Roberto Rossellini, saying she wanted to work with him. They set up a production company and funding through RKO and its owner, Howard Hughes.
But their collaboration went much further — they began a romance during the film that led to the birth of their daughter, actress Isabella Rossellini.
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Agatha Christie adaptation Murder on the Orient Express would be captivating for the casting alone, and Bergman is a standout. She won an Oscar — her third — for Best Supporting Actress.
The rest of the cast included another woman famously paired with Bogart onscreen, Lauren Bacall — Bogart and Bacall were also married for more than a decade — as well as a who’s who of stellar actors, including Sean Connery, just emerging from his run of James Bond films; Jacqueline Bissett, Michael York, Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Anothony Perkins, and many more. It’s fascinating to see so many screen icons mix it up.
Bergman died eight years later, of breast cancer on her 67th birthday in 1982. But she continued to work, and shine, until the end.
If you liked this list, you might also like this list of Classic 1940s Movies That Are Still a Pleasure to Watch.
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