In the family, she learned as a tutor to medical students (and later famous group of therapists), Jacob Moreno know to whom they later attributed the impetus to go on the stage. Their training was received in private acting schools and at the conservatory in Vienna. She made her debut in 1915 at the theater in Innsbruck, later followed by appearances in Zurich, Vienna, Munich and Berlin. In Vienna, she worked as a model for the sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck, who are unhappy in love with her. Her first film role was her 1922 (Evangelimann). The big breakthrough came in under Victor Barnowsky with the Shakespeare play-As You Like It at the Lessing Theater.

From 1924 she worked exclusively together with the director Paul Czinner, who also became her partner in private. As Jews they had after the "seizure" of the Nazis first to Vienna and then flee to London, where she also got married. Both the transition from the silent era to talkies as well as the linguistic adaptation to their new workplace, she managed with ease. Already in 1934, she played Catherine the Great, under the direction of her husband. The film was banned in Germany, however. In 1935 she won for her role in Never leave me again her only Oscar nomination.

1940 Bergner and Czinner after Hollywood emigrated, but Bergner's only Hollywood film Paris Calling (1941) was not a great success. They shifted the focus of their work on stage again. After the war she worked in New York, among others, the German theater Players from Abroad, until 1950 after England and in 1954 returned to Germany where it successfully as a stage and film actress worked.

1962 saw her the Schiller Prize of the city of Mannheim and 1982 in Venice of Eleonora Duse Cup awarded. Her directorial debut was 1970, three years later, she retired into private life.

She died in London, Golders Green Crematorium and Mausoleum.

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