The Bridge on the River Kwai

1957 · David Lean

British POWs under the rigid, honor-obsessed Colonel Nicholson are forced to build a railway bridge for their Japanese captors in occupied Burma, with Nicholson gradually treating the bridge's construction as a matter of British pride rather than collaboration with the enemy. Meanwhile, an escaped American prisoner is recruited by British commandos to return and destroy the very bridge Nicholson has poured his soul into completing. David Lean's epic builds to a devastating climax in which Nicholson's obsession with his own achievement collides fatally with the mission to blow it up.

Director

David Lean

Studio

Columbia Pictures, Horizon Pictures

Starring

William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa