{"id":1181114,"date":"2025-12-10T09:22:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/?p=1181114"},"modified":"2025-12-10T09:22:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T17:22:03","slug":"ingrid-bergman-classic-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/ingrid-bergman-classic-movies\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Ingrid Bergman Classic Movies That Are Still a Pleasure to Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

The career of Ingrid Bergman reminds us that not all classic movies hold up \u2014 because of how remarkably her films do<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The star of Casablanca<\/em>, Notorious<\/em> and other masterpieces \u2014 and three-time Oscar winner \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let’s look back at just five of them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casablanca (1942)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Screenshot<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stunningly time when it was released at the height of World War II, Casablanca has somehow never gone out of style \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u2014 which makes the film’s final outcome all the more heroic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Best Picture winner, Casablanca has only gone up since in the appraisal of most film lovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notorious (1946)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"Seductive<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Another film tied to World War II, Notorious<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Things become complicated when she’s asked to seduce one of the targets \u2014 even after she and Devlin have apparently fallen for each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For much of the film, Alicia \u2014 and Bergman \u2014 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<\/em> (1945), and 1949’s Under Capricorn<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaslight (1944)<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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A publicity still from <\/em>Gaslight.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Adapted from Patrick Hamilton’s 1938 play Gas Light<\/em> \u2014 and remaking the British film Gaslight<\/em> \u2014 this American version finds Bergman playing Paula Alquist Anton, whose husband (played by Charles Boyer) manipulates her into believing she may be insane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Casablanca<\/em> \u2014 scenes of which still turn up frequently as memes \u2014 Gaslight<\/em> remains so influential in modern expression that “gaslight” remains a modern term for people accused of manipulating reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stromboli (1950)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The neorealist drama Stromboli <\/em>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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stromboli<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But their collaboration went much further \u2014 they began a romance during the film that led to the birth of their daughter, actress Isabella Rossellini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Murder on the Orient Express (1974)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Agatha Christie adaptation Murder on the Orient Express<\/em> would be captivating for the casting alone, and Bergman is a standout. She won an Oscar \u2014 her third \u2014 for Best Supporting Actress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the cast included another woman famously paired with Bogart onscreen, Lauren Bacall \u2014 Bogart and Bacall were also married for more than a decade \u2014 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bergman died eight years later, of breast cancer on her 67th birthday in 1982. But she continued to work, and shine, until the end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you liked this list, you might also like this list of Classic 1940s Movies That Are Still a Pleasure to Watch<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And we invite you to follow us for more stories like this<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Main image: Ingrid Bergman in <\/em>Notorious. RKO Radio Pictures<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Editor’s Note: Corrects main image.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The career of Ingrid Bergman reminds us that not all classic movies hold up \u2014 because of how remarkably her","protected":false},"author":1641,"featured_media":1173736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable_comments":false,"cm_data":"","cpt_newsletter_id":0,"tpd_coauthor":[],"tpd_feed_delay":{"delay_type":"default"},"is_tpd_lists_single_post":true,"tpd_featured_posts_arr":"","tpd_franchise_content":"","hide_featured_img_single_post":false,"msn_featured_video":[],"_msn_custom_title":"","tpd_featured_video":[],"tpd_sponsored_post_logo":"","tpd_sponsored_post_logo_link":"","tpd_sponsored_post_logo_width":0,"tpd_sponsored_enable_nofollow":true,"tpd_disable_incontent_ads":false,"tpd_disable_right_rail_ads":false,"tpd_disable_after_content_ads":false,"tpd_disable_header_ads":false,"tpd_disable_sticky_footer_ads":false,"tpd_disable_video_ads":false,"tpd_disable_outbrain":false,"tpd_affiliate_disclaimer":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[40616,42060],"tags":[41013,10241],"coauthor":[],"feeds":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1181114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gallery","8":"category-msn-gallery","9":"tag-classic-movies","10":"tag-ingrid-bergman"},"thumbnail":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/notorious_3fc69fd0-428x241.jpg","fimg_url_thumb":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/notorious_3fc69fd0-428x241.jpg","fimg_url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/notorious_3fc69fd0-788x444.jpg","author_name":"Tim Molloy","author_avatar":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/IMG_1078-100x100.jpg","author_link":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/author\/tim-molloy\/","coauthors":[],"primary_category":{"term_id":40616,"name":"Gallery","slug":"gallery","taxonomy":"category","url":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/category\/gallery\/"},"featured_img_medium":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/notorious_3fc69fd0-788x444.jpg","post_categories":["Gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1641"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1173736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181114"},{"taxonomy":"coauthor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthor?post=1181114"},{"taxonomy":"feeds","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.moviemaker.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/feeds?post=1181114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}