Film

A Woman's Face

Name: A Woman's Face
Genre: Drama, Crime
Released: 1938
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Tore Svennberg, Anders Henrikson, Georg Rydeberg, Gunnar Sjöberg

Other titles called A Woman's Face: the 1941 film.

Drama

A Swedish noir thriller from 1938 where Ingrid Bergman plays a scarred criminal transformed by plastic surgery, only to be pulled back into her dangerous past. It's a tense psychological study of identity and redemption, filmed with expressionist shadows and moral ambiguity. For those who love character-driven crime drama with real stakes and complicated women.

TMDb rating

3.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like melodrama that treats a face and a conscience as the same question, with a cool noir shadow over the moral debate.

Skip it if you find 1930s studio drama stagy or sentimental, or need the crime plot to drive hard; this one leans on feeling and conversation.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a measured 104 minutes, with a melancholy tone and more attention to faces and silences than to plot mechanics.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Gaslight1944

Bergman earned her first Oscar for this psychological thriller about a woman manipulated by her husband. Similar exploration of identity, trust, and a woman fighting to know what's real amid deception and cruelty.

But The pacing is deliberate and the emotional torture can feel repetitive if you're looking for plot momentum rather than psychological depth.

The Third Man1949

A masterpiece of moral ambiguity set in post-war Vienna. Like A Woman's Face, it asks whether a charismatic person can truly escape their past, with stunning cinematography and a betrayal at its core.

But It's more concerned with atmosphere and philosophy than plot mechanics, and some find the romantic subplot underdeveloped compared to the intrigue.

Rebecca1940

Hitchcock's exploration of a woman haunted by another's shadow, unable to escape an identity imposed on her. Bergman herself starred in a later Hitchcock film—this captures that same dread and psychological imprisonment.

But The pacing drags in the middle, and the resolution relies on exposition rather than action or revelation.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from A Woman's Face

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Children of Paradise1945

Both films are obsessed with the gap between who we appear to be and who we actually are—but where Bergman's film is noir-dark, this one finds tragedy beautiful.

Often called the greatest French film ever made. It shares A Woman's Face's fascination with performance, identity, and the masks we wear in love. But it's set in the Romantic era theater world, turning crime and psychology into something luminous and heartbreaking.

But It's over three hours, in French, and relies on your patience with melodrama and poetic dialogue rather than plot propulsion. Dense and demanding.

In a Lonely Place1950

Bogart as a volatile screenwriter accused of murder; both films center on how reputation and perception can trap you more completely than bars. Dark, claustrophobic, and unsentimental about redemption.

But It's a bleak film that offers no catharsis, and the protagonist's toxicity can make it difficult to invest in his fate.

The Killers1946

A noir about a man fatally drawn back to his criminal past despite a chance at escape. Burt Lancaster and Ava Gardner in a taut, morally murky thriller with echoes of A Woman's Face's core conflict.

But The fractured narrative structure can feel confusing on first viewing, and the femme fatale role is thinner than the male storylines.

The Asphalt Jungle1950

A pioneering heist film that influenced decades of crime cinema. It shares the Swedish film's interest in how criminals live with their choices and the relationships that bind or betray them.

But It's an ensemble piece, so no single character dominates, which can make it feel scattered if you're used to tighter character studies.

Laura1944

A noir detective story where obsession and identity become indistinguishable. Like Bergman's film, it's fascinated by how we construct and misread the people we become fixated on.

But The twist ending divides viewers—some find it brilliant, others feel it undermines the film's emotional logic.

The Scarlet Empress1934

Marlene Dietrich as a woman transformed by circumstance and ambition. Pre-dates Bergman's film and shares its interest in female transformation, reinvention, and the cost of power.

But It's visually baroque and narratively loose—more about creating a mood than telling a tight story. Some find it overwrought.

Suspicion1941

Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine in a psychological thriller about doubt eating away at love and trust. Another exploration of how perception warps reality, with a woman isolated and questioning everything.

But The ending was heavily compromised by the studio, and many feel it betrays the psychological momentum the film had built.

Persona1966

The same actress, exploring the same obsession with identity and transformation, but now through cinema's purest psychological language rather than a narrative frame.

Bergman herself, twenty-eight years later, in Bergman's masterpiece about identity and the masks we present to the world. A woman stops speaking; another woman's identity begins to dissolve. It's hypnotic, experimental, and philosophically deep.

But It's deliberately abstract and symbolic—there's no conventional plot, and some viewers find it more intellectually demanding than emotionally engaging.

Johnny Guitar1954

Both center on women who've committed crimes and carry that weight, but Johnny Guitar dares to make it mythic and strange rather than psychologically realistic.

Nicholas Ray's radical Western where Vienna (Joan Crawford) is a hardened criminal masquerading as a saloon keeper, caught between her dark past and a chance at something better. It shares the moral and psychological texture of A Woman's Face but remakes it as operatic genre cinema.

But It's an odd film that confuses many viewers—the gender roles are inverted, the plot is strange, and it's more interested in atmosphere than clarity. Some find it pretentious.