Drama · History · War
British
1957 · Directed by David Lean · 162 min
In a Japanese prison camp in the Burmese jungle in 1943, a newly arrived British colonel clashes with the camp commandant over how his men will be put to work on a railway bridge. It is a war film built on duty, pride and the unsettling question of what counts as victory.
Why it matters in cinema history
A defining example of the large-scale, internationally financed 1950s epic, and a key bridge between British postwar war films and the more ambiguous war cinema of the 1960s and 70s.
Watch with intention
Watch it as a duel between two men who share a code of honour but wield it very differently.
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