Swedish-born Greta Garbo became a star with a string of hit films throughout the 1920s and 1930s before disappearing from screens in 1941 at the age of 36. Though she appeared in only a handful of titles, enough have remained classics to give her a special place in history. Let’s take a look back at 10 of her greatest films, ranked worst to best.
Born in 1905, Garbo got her start in the silent era, acting in her native Sweden before coming to Hollywood at the behest of MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer. She soon became a popular presence on the silver screen as a romantic leading lady. Her performance in “Flesh and the Devil” (1926) as a seductress who tears two friends apart proved she was a woman to die for.
Since English was not her first language, Mayer was rightfully nervous that the emergence of sound would destroy one of his biggest stars. Luckily, her first talking picture — an adaptation of Eugene O’Neill‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Anna Christie” (1930) — was a success, aided by an ad campaign that encouraged audiences to show up so they could hear Garbo speak. “Give me a whisky,” the wayward Anne proclaims, “ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby!”
Yet the line that would come to define Garbo’s persona came in another film: the Best Picture-winning “Grand Hotel” (1932). “I want to be alone,” her depressed ballerina wistfully utters at the end of this star-studded melodrama, and it seems that was a case of art imitating life.
Before her retirement, Garbo amassed four Oscar nominations as Best Actress: “Romance” (1930), “Anna Christie,” “Camille” (1937), and “Ninotchka” (1939). She received an honorary statuette in 1955, but ever the recluse, she didn’t show up to accept it.
Tour our photo gallery of Garbo’s 10 greatest films, which you just might want to watch on your own.
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10. ROMANCE (1930)
Image Credit: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Clarence Brown. Screenplay by Edwin Justus Mayer and Bess Meredyth, based on the play by Edward Sheldon. Starring Lewis Stone, Gavin Gordon, Elliott Nugent, Florence Lake, Clara Blandick, Henry Armetta.
Garbo received her first Oscar nomination as Best Actress for this schmaltzy, aptly-titled romantic drama. Directed by Clarence Brown, the film casts the Swedish star as an Italian opera singer who falls in love with a terribly dull young priest (Lewis Stone). Because Academy rules at the time allowed actors to contend multiple times in the same category for different films, Garbo also competed that year for the superior “Anna Christie.” (Brown, for that matter, was nominated for directing both films as well.) She lost both bids to Norma Shearer (“The Divorcee”).
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9. CONQUEST (1937)
Image Credit: SNAP/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Clarence Brown. Screenplay by S. N. Behrman, Salka Viertel, Samuel Hoffenstein, Talbot Jennings, Zoe Akins, based on ‘Pani Walewska’ by Waclaw Gasiorowski and Helen Jerome. Starring Charles Boyer, Reginald Owen, Alan Marshall.
In “Conquest,” Polish Countess Marie Walewska (Garbo) is dispatched by her country to become mistress to Napoleon Bonaparte (Best Actor nominee Charles Boyer) in the hopes of influencing him. But love and heartbreak get in the way of politics. With lavish costumes and ornate, Oscar-nominated production design, this is the kind of prestige melodrama MGM used to release on a weekly basis. The performances by Garbo and Boyer help add heat to a rather routine story.
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8. MATA HARI (1931)
Image Credit: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by George Fitzmaurice. Written by Benjamin Glazer, Leo Birinsky, Doris Anderson, Gilbert Emery. Starring Ramon Novarro, Lewis Stone, Lionel Barrymore.
Ostensibly based on a true story, “Mata Hari” stars Garbo as an exotic dancer recruited by the German army to act as a spy in WWI. She uses her power of seduction to gain information from Lionel Barrymore while falling in love with the dashing Ramon Novarro, and is ultimately executed for espionage. The highlight of the film is Garbo’s erotic dance number. Several cuts were made to this sexually explicit film by the Hays Code, inspiring a search for the mythical “lost” print. “Mata Hari” would remain the star’s biggest box office hit.
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7. ANNA CHRISTIE (1930)
Image Credit: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Clarence Brown. Screenplay by Frances Marion, based on the play by Eugene O’Neill. Starring Charles Bickford, George F. Marion, Marie Dressler.
“Garbo talks!” proclaimed the ads for “Anna Christie,” and indeed, this adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play was the first sound film for the actress. She plays the title character, a wayward woman who reunites with her estranged father (George F. Marion) and begins a new relationship with a seafaring man (Charles Bickford). But her dark past keeps rearing its ugly head. Garbo’s first line of dialogue — “Give me a whisky, ginger ale on the side, and don’t be stingy, baby!” — became a signature for the types of hard-edged ladies she’d continue to play throughout the sound era. She reaped two Best Actress nominations at the Oscars that year (the second was for “Romance”), losing both to Norma Shearer for “The Divorcee.” Beware the 74-minute version.
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6. FLESH AND THE DEVIL (1926)
Image Credit: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Clarence Brown. Screenplay by Benjamin Glazer, based on ‘The Undying Past’ by Hermann Sudermann. Starring John Gilbert, Lars Hanson, Barbara Kent.
The best of Garbo’s silent features is this romantic melodrama about two childhood friends (John Gilbert and Lars Hanson) who grow up to become soldiers in the German Army and get torn about by a beautiful seductress (Garbo). “Flesh and the Devil” marked the first collaboration between the actress and co-star Gilbert, with whom she would make four films. It was also the first time she worked with director Clarence Brown, who helmed seven of her films.
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5. QUEEN CHRISTINA (1933)
Image Credit: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Screenplay by H. M. Harwood and Salka Viertel, story by Margaret P. Levino and Viertel, dialogue by S. N. Behrman. Starring John Gilbert, Ian Keith, Lewis Stone, Elizabeth Young, C. Aubrey Smith, Reginald Owen.
Having already become queen of the box office, it seems fitting that Garbo would portray an actual monarch in at least once. This epic biopic recounts the life of Queen Christina of Sweden (Garbo), who rose to power in the 17th century, only to abdicate the throne for the love of a galant Spanish ambassador (John Gilbert). Director Rouben Mamoulian and company mount an impressive production, anchored by Garbo’s haunting performance. Made in pre-Code Hollywood, the film is notable for its buried lesbian subtext, which hints at the real Christina’s actual sexuality (“I shall die a bachelor!” she declares at one point while dressed in masculine clothing).
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4. ANNA KARENINA (1935)
Image Credit: ITV/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Clarence Brown. Screenplay by S. N. Behrman, Clemence Dane, Salka Viertel, based on the novel by Leo Tolstoy. Starring Fredric March, Maureen O’Sullivan, Freddie Bartholomew, Basil Rathbone, Reginald Owen.
“Anna Karenina” has been adapted so many times with so many different actresses (most recently by Keira Knightley) that it’s almost impossible to appreciate the power of Tolstoy’s original novel. Garbo herself took on the role of a sheltered Russian wife carrying on a doomed affair twice: once in the silent version, “Love” (1927), and again in this Clarence Brown-directed sound remake. While all the men — including Basil Rathbone as her stilted husband; Fredric March as her lover, Count Vronsky; and Freddie Bartholomew as her precocious son — play it pretty straight, it’s Garbo’s feminist sensibilities that help modernize a rather old-fashioned costume drama.
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3. CAMILLE (1937)
Image Credit: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by George Cukor. Screenplay by Zoe Akins, Frances Marion, and James Hilton, based on the novel and play by Alexandre Dumas fils. Starring Robert Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Elizabeth Allan, Jessie Ralph, Henry Daniell, Lenore Ulric, Laura Hope Crews.
George Cukor’s “Camille” is the best of the Garbo costume dramas, a lavish adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ tragic novel about a Parisian courtesan who leaves a stuffy baron (Henry Daniell) to marry an irresistible young man (Robert Taylor). But the young man’s father (Lionel Barrymore) knows all about her sordid past. She eventually dies of consumption, although thanks to the lush cinematography by Karl Freud and William Daniels (who photographed most of the actress’ films), she continues to look gorgeous even as her health is failing. Garbo reaped a Best Actress nomination at the Oscars, losing to Luise Rainer (“The Good Earth”). Cukor directed Garbo in her last film, the farcical “Two-Faced Woman” (1941).
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2. GRAND HOTEL (1932)
Image Credit: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Edmund Goulding. Screenplay by William A. Drake, based on his play adapted from the novel ‘Menschen im Hotel’ by Vicki Baum. Starring John Barrymore, Joan Crawford, Wallace Berry, Lionel Barrymore, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt.
When Garbo wistfully uttered “I want to be alone” at the end of “Grand Hotel,” it was perhaps the closest moment of art imitating life the famously reclusive actress ever experienced. The line certainly took on special meaning when she disappeared from movie screens following the 1941 release “Two-Faced Woman.” This adaptation of Vicki Baum’s play concerns the goings-on at a place where “nothing ever happens.” The A-list cast includes Garbo as a depressed ballerina; John Barrymore as the jewel thief who loves her; Lionel Barrymore as a dying accountant; Joan Crawford as an ambitious stenographer; and Wallace Berry as her boss and boyfriend. Unabashedly melodramatic and glamorous, “Grand Hotel” set the standard for star-studded, soapy fun. It also holds the dubious distinction of being the only film to win the Oscar for Best Picture without receiving any other nominations.
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1. NINOTCHKA (1939)
Image Credit: MGM/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Screenplay by Melchior Lengyel, Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Reisch, story by Lengyel. Starring Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Sig Ruman, Bela Lugosi.
The ad campaign for Ernst Lubitch’s sublime comedy “Ninotchka” sold audiences on one enticing premise: “Garbo Laughs!” Turns out the solemn, melancholy movie star was actually a very capable comedienne. She plays Nina Ivanovna Yakushova (aka Ninotchka), a rigid, humorless Russian woman sent to Paris to retrieve a trio of Soviets and a cache of diamonds. Her icy exterior is slowly but surely melted by a charming man (Melvyn Douglas) who represents everything she despises. It’s too bad Garbo made just one more film after this one (another comedy co-starring Douglas, “Two-Faced Woman”), because she sparkles while making us laugh. The film brought her a fourth and final Oscar nomination, which she lost to Vivien Leigh (“Gone with the Wind”).
