Of all the actresses brought to prominence through the films of Ingmar Bergman, Ingrid Thulin perhaps best exemplifies the cool, blonde Swedish beauty who combines sensuality and suffering with Nordic intensity. She first worked with Bergman, who was the artistic director of the Malmö Municipal Theatre, after she had trained at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm in the late 1940s. In the film Wild Strawberries, however, playing the daughter-in-law, she made her mark in Swedish cinema and began her long and fruitful career in Bergman's films. She appeared in a variety of roles in his films from 1958 in Brink of Life, for which she received an award at Cannes along with Bibi Andersson and Eva Dahlbeck, to 1972 when she starred with Harriet Andersson and Liv Ullmann in Cries and Whispers. Often cast as a mistress (Winter Light, Hour of the Wolf, The Rite), Thulin capitalized on the enigmatic quality of her stunning beauty and her tragic face which conveys a unique combination of pain and pleasure. Her career in Swedish cinema has not been restricted to the films of Bergman, however, and she also has been active in the movies of many other Swedish filmmakers–among them Alf Sjöberg and Mai Zetterling. Particularly noteworthy was her appearance in the latter's Night Games.

Ingrid Thulin's international career ranks her among the three great Swedish actresses with Ingrid Bergman and Greta Garbo. While the films in which she has appeared outside Sweden have made uneven use of her talents, her performances in Luchino Visconti's The Damned and Alain Resnais's La Guerre est finie were marked by brilliance. Especially memorable, because it so movingly captured her unique style, was her portrayal of Yves Montand's loving and long-suffering wife in the Resnais film.

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