Born in Figeac, Lot, Midi-Pyrénées, France, Boyer started on the stage, but he found his success in European and Hollywood movies during the 1920s and 1930s. He continued to make films over the next several decades.

Charles Boyer is best known for his role in the 1944 film Gaslight in which he tried to convince Ingrid Bergman's character that she was going insane. Some years earlier, it was Boyer's role in Algiers (1938) that caused many to credit him with the never-heard line "Come with me to the casbah."

In 1948 Charles Boyer was made a chevalier of the French Legion of Honor. He continued to act until a few years before his death, his last major film role being that of the High Lama in a musical version of Lost Horizon (1973).

For his contribution to the motion picture and television industries, Charles Boyer has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6300 Hollywood Blvd.

Two days after his wife, British actress Pat Paterson, died from cancer, Charles Boyer committed suicide with an overdose of Seconal. He was interred in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, United States alongside with his wife and son Michael Charles Boyer.