At age 17, Curtiz joined a traveling circus and later trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Theatre and Art in Budapest. He acted and directed motion pictures in several European countries before moving to the United States in 1926.

Curtiz directed nearly 50 films at Warner Brothers during the 1930s. The popular adventures starring Flynn include Captain Blood (1935), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), and The Sea Hawk (1940). Curtiz won an Academy Award for Casablanca (1942), starring Ingrid Bergman (Bergman, Ingrid) and Humphrey Bogart (Bogart, Humphrey). His later films include Mildred Pierce (1945), White Christmas (1954), and Francis of Assisi (1961).