With its creative use of deep focus, meticulously choreographed blocking, and engagement of contemporary social issues, Ingeborg Holm set Sjöström apart as a director and serves as one of the key artistic starting points for the Swedish cinematic tradition. Based on author Nils Krok's firsthand experience with the Swedish welfare system, the film's moving drama about widow Ingeborg Holm's descent into poverty and maltreatment by the bureaucracy sparked a debate that eventually led to significant welfare reforms. While prompting social controversy, Ingeborg Holm was also influential in cinema's battle for legitimacy as an art form. As one Gothenburg reviewer enthusiastically declared of the film's premiere: “Film can be art!” Though the outbreak of World War I limited its circulation, in more recent years Ingeborg Holm has come to be seen as one of the masterpieces of prewar cinema.