BFF25: British Brilliance - The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Winner of seven Academy Awards® and rated an impressive 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, The Bridge on the River Kwai is an epic war drama adapted from the novel by Pierre Bouelle, that was a critical and popular success at the time and now remains an enduring classic.

Set in a Japanese prisoner-of-war (POW) camp in Burma during World War II, it follows a group of British POWs who are forced to build a railway bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. They are oblivious to a plan by British and American intelligence officers who are conspiring to blow up the structure in a daring commando raid through the jungle. However, Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), who supervised the bridge’s construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans.

Director: David Lean 
Cast: Alec Guinness, William Holden, Jack Hawkins, Sessue Hayakawa

WINNER x7 - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Writing: Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, Best Music: Scoring, Academy Awards® 1958

WINNER x3 - Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Actor – Drama, Best Director, Golden Globes 1958

WINNER x4 - Best British Film, Best British Actor, Best British Screenplay, Best Film from any Source, BAFTA Awards 1958