She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for the film version of "Escape Me Never" (1935). She repeated her stage role of Rosalind, opposite Laurence Olivier's Orlando, in the 1936 film "As You Like It", the first sound film version of Shakespeare's play, and the first sound film of any Shakespeare play filmed in England. Bergner previously played the role on the German stage, and several critics found that her accent got in the way of their enjoyment of the film, which was not a success. She returned intermittently to the stage, for instance in the title role of John Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" in 1946.