Primarily a stage actress, her career flourished in Berlin and Paris before she moved to London to work in films.

In 1943, Bergner returned to Broadway in the play The Two Mrs. Carrolls, for which she won the Distinguished Performance Medal from the Drama League.

The Hebrew she heard in her childhood was associated with Yom Kippur and Pesach, and on her visits to Israel, she apologized for not knowing the language.

Bergner had previously played the role on the German stage, and several critics found that her accent got in the way of their enjoyment of the film, which was not a success.

[10] Bergner temporarily returned to Germany in 1954, where she acted in movies and on the stage; the Berlin district of Steglitz named a city park after her.

In 1973, she starred in Der Fußgänger (English title: The Pedestrian), which was nominated for an Academy Award and which won the Golden Globe for Best Foreign-Language Foreign Film of 1974.

In 1980, Austria awarded her the Cross of Merit for Science and Art, and, in 1982, she won the Eleonora Duse Prize Asolo.