The family of her father, Rudolf Salomon Baer (born 1930), emigrated from Germany to Denmark in 1933 after Hitler's rise to power.

The family of her mother, Heni (née Jonas; born 1936), emigrated to Denmark from Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, to escape rising antisemitism.

In interviews for the media as an adult, Bier describes herself as lacking in social skills as a child, who liked to play football with boys and preferred reading books to interacting with others.

[5] After directing music videos, commercials and the feature films Freud Flytter Hjemmefra (Freud's Leaving Home, 1990), Det Bli'r i Familien (Family Matters, 1993), Pensionat Oscar (Like it Was Never Before, 1995) and Sekten (Credo, 1997), Bier made a breakthrough in her home country of Denmark with the film The One and Only in 1999.

A sidestep from the easy going charm of Livet är en schlager (Once in a Lifetime, 2000), Elsker dig for evigt (Open Hearts, 2002) brought Bier's work to much wider international attention and acclaim.

Acutely observed and beautifully written by Bier and Anders Thomas Jensen, the film is a perceptive and painful exploration of broken lives and interconnected tragedies.

Since the completion of Open Hearts, Bier's reputation has continued to ascend with the harrowing Brødre (Brothers, 2004) and the emotionally engaging Efter Brylluppet (After the Wedding, 2006), which was nominated for Best Foreign Language film at the 2007 Academy Awards.

[6] Also a maker of shorts, music videos and commercials, Bier's films typically meditate on pain, tragedy, and atonement.

The film is a Danish romantic comedy starring Sidse Babett Knudsen, Niels Olsen, Rafael Edholm, and Paprika Steen in a story about two unfaithful married couples faced with becoming first-time parents.

[10] Susanne Bier received the International Critics Award at the 2002 Toronto International Film Festival "for the fact that it proves that Dogma has come of age and matured into a potent cinematic language that skillfully captures the freeing of real emotions that extreme trauma creates within the lives of the characters in her film.

To celebrate Aarhus as the European capital of culture 2017 three stage works were produced; a musical, dance and an opera all based on films by Bier were commissioned and performed in Musikhuset.

While Schickel saw the film as possibly "old-fashioned stylistically, and rather manipulative in its plotting", he also saw "something deeply satisfying in the way it works out the fates of its troubled, yet believable characters.

In this film we follow the character of Audrey who has been married for eleven years with Brian and leads a well-to-do life, but suddenly her husband dies after trying to defend a woman from an assault.

The two will establish a relationship that will force them to unite their pains, helping each other to make a change in their lives, the difficult search for happiness.

The film stars Mikael Persbrandt, Trine Dyrholm, and Ulrich Thomsen in a story which takes place in small-town Denmark and a refugee camp in Africa.

[19] Peter Nielsen of Dagbladet Information called In a Better World "in all ways a successful film", and although there "is no doubt that Susanne Bier can tell a good story", he was not entirely convinced: "She can seduce, and she can push the completely correct emotional buttons, so that mothers' as well as fathers' hearts are struck, but she doesn't earnestly drill her probe into the meat.

"[19] In 2012, Bier directed Den skaldede frisør (Love is All You Need), a 2012 Danish romantic comedy film starring Pierce Brosnan and Trine Dyrholm.

[20] In 2014, she directed her second American feature, dark romantic drama Serena starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, and shortly after followed up with Danish drama A Second Chance starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Ulrich Thomsen, Nikolaj Lie Kaas and Maria Bonnevie.

[22] The film stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper as newlyweds running a timber business in 1930s North Carolina.

The website's critical consensus states "Serena unites an impressive array of talent on either side of the cameras – then leaves viewers to wonder how it all went so wrong.

Scripting duties for the second series were handled by Matthew Orton, Charles Cumming, Namsi Khan and Francesca Gardiner.

He added, "And though Hugh Laurie may seem a surprising choice to play 'the worst man in the world', he dominates the screen as a horribly convincing villain.

Alert viewers may spot a familiar face in the background of one scene, in a restaurant: John le Carré himself makes a cameo, as he did in the films of A Most Wanted Man and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

[35] Bier directed the TV series The Undoing, which premiered on HBO in October 2020 and starred Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant.

[38] Most recently, Bier directed the Showtime limited series The First Lady, starring Viola Davis, Michelle Pfieffer, and Gillian Anderson.

Most recently, Bier directed the limited TV series,The Perfect Couple starring Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Dakota Fanning, Eve Hewson and Ishaan Khatter.

Bier often raises questions about how far one would go for a child is in distress, if social services appear to be unable or unwilling to help, and the limits one exceeds to get their own desires fulfilled.

[39] Bier's style of direction gives the players a great deal of freedom, allowing improvisation in both texts and presentation.

"Although she frequently depicts international stories in third world countries, Bier had never been to Africa or India until she started making movies there.

Her frequent writing collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen confirms this "humanness" in her, that "She's very good at putting herself in a character's place, which is really a gift."