| | | It spans a whole new world of entertainment!|"Winner of 7 Academy Awards, Including 1957 Best Picture."
Features: DVD, Dolby Digital (5.1), Dolby Surround Sound, Aspect Ratio 2.35:1
When British P.O.W.s build a vital railway bridge in enemy-occupied Burma, Allied commandos are assigned to destroy it in David Lean's epic World War II adventure The Bridge on the River Kwai.Spectacularly produced, The Bridge on the River Kwai captured the imagination of the public and won seven 1957 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Alec Guinness), and Best Director. Even its theme song, an old WWI whistling tune, the "Colonel Bogey March," became a massive wordwide hit. The Bridge on the River Kwai continues today as one of the most memorable cinematic experiences of all time.
"Psychological battle of wills combined with high-powered action sequences make this a blockbuster..." Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"Guinness, Lean and British war cinema have never been better." Channel 4 Film
"One of the best war movies, mixed with one of the best action movies, mixed with one of Alex Guinness' best performances...One of the greats." Dan Fienberg, Zap2It.com
"A towering work." Ian Nathan, Empire
"A gripping drama, expertly put together and handled with skill in all departments." Mike Kaplan, Variety
"Epic wartime storytelling at its most vibrant and satisfying." Scott Weinberg, DVD Talk
"...Guinness' outstanding performance is one of the many things that work in David Lean's intriguing epic." Wesley Lovell, The Oscar Guy
Editor's Note
One of the all-time great war films, THE BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI is yet another classic from the marvelous David Lean (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA, DR. ZHIVAGO). The film is an outstanding, psychologically complex adaptation of Pierre Boulle's 1952 novel, a classic story of English POWs in Burma forced to build a bridge to aid the war effort of their Japanese captors. British and American intelligence officers conspire to blow up the structure, but Col. Nicholson (a fabulous Alec Guinness), the commander who supervised the bridge's construction, has acquired a sense of pride in his creation and tries to foil their plans. Although credited to screenwriter Carl Foreman, the script was actually written by blacklisted writer Michael Wilson. The film garnered seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor (Guinness). The climax is one of the great finales in film history.
| Features | Theatrical Trailer | | Talent Files | | Enhanced For 16X9 TV | | Thai Subtitles | | Animated Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection With Motion | | Portuguese Subtitles | | Chinese Subtitles | | Korean Subtitles | | English Subtitles | | Spanish Subtitles | | French Subtitles | | French Audio | | Spanish Audio | | Portuguese Audio | | Digitally Mastered Audio And Anamorphic Video | | English 5.1 Dolby Digital | | English 2-Channel Dolby Surround |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Columbia Tri-Star |
| Release Date: 4/28/2009 |
| Running Time: 162 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1957 | | Catalog ID: 05278 | | UPC: 00043396052789 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English [CC], English, French Dubbed, Portuguese Dubbed, Spanish Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, French, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Chinese | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Golden Globe (1958) |  | Alec Guinness, Winner, Best Actor | |
Oscar (1958) | | David Lean, Winner, Best Director | | Jack Hildyard, Winner, Best Cinematography | | Sam Spiegel, Winner, Best Picture | | Pierre Boulle, Carl Foreman, Michael Wilson, Winner, Best Writing, Screenplay Based On Material From Another Medium | |
Winner (1958) | | | Golden Globe, The Bridge on the River Kwai, Best Motion Picture - Drama | | | Golden Globe, Alec Guinness, Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama | | | Golden Globe, David Lean, Best Motion Picture Director | |
Nominee (1958) | | | Golden Globe, Sessue Hayakawa, Best Supporting Actor | |
Winner (1958) | | | Oscar, Alec Guinness, Best Actor in a Leading Role | | | Oscar, Jack Hildyard, Best Cinematography | | | Oscar, David Lean, Best Director | | | Oscar, Peter Taylor, Best Film Editing | | | Oscar, Malcolm Arnold, Best Music, Scoring | | | Oscar, Sam Spiegel, Best Picture | | | Oscar, Carl Foreman, et. al., Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium | |
Nominee (1958) | | | Oscar, Sessue Hayakawa, Best Actor in a Supporting Role |
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| | Professional Reviews | Chicago Sun-Times
"...Lean handles the climax with precision and suspense..." 04/18/1999 p.5USA Today
"...[A] masterpiece...purely enjoyable..." 11/17/2000 p.13E Entertainment Weekly
"...[A] masterpiece....That rare film about something as seemingly black-and-white as World War II that is colored entirely in shades of gray, and the better for it..." 11/24/2000 p.51 Total Film
"...It's certainly weathered well thanks to its novel and ingenious approach to presenting multiple perspectives of the Second World War..." 03/01/2001 p.104 Premiere
"...[T]wo compelling stories jelled into one sprawling action film..." 12/01/2003 p.9 Chicago Sun-Times 8 of 10
...one of the few [war movies] that focuses not on larger rights and wrongs but on individuals... By the end, we are less interested in who wins than in how individual characters will behave... The story in the jungle moves ahead neatly, economically, powerfully... - Roger Ebert
ReelViews 10 of 10
Lean also didn't believe in pinching pennies. Despite having generous financial backers, many of Lean's films came in late and overbudget. Viewing pictures like The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, however, it's hard to find fault with the director's extravagant sensibilities...Debates could rage for hours about which title on his resume represents Lean in top form. The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia both won Lean Best Director and Best Picture Oscars, and the majority of critics would cite those as his best works. As good as both are, however (and they are very good) Bridge is a tighter movie, with a little more meat and less fat. Both get high marks when it comes to "spectacle." Both feature excellent acting, cinematography, and set design. There's not a lot to separate them, but I think The Bridge on the River Kwai is the better movie...For director Lean, this represented a cross-roads between the more intimate, character-driven dramas of his early career and the glorious spectacles that marked his latter years. The Bridge on the River Kwai contains elements of both - the characters are well-drawn and the finale is astonishing - and is all the stronger for it. In my opinion, it is one of the two best films to emerge from a very strong decade of cinema. - James Berardinelli
Reel.com 9 of 10
Although half of the movie features headliner William Holden as an escaped American POW who returns with a commando (Jack Hawkins) to sabotage the British colonel's morale-building project, Guinness' performance earned him an Oscar for Best Actor, and the film was awarded Best Picture. Since then, Bridge has aged well, acknowledged to be not just one of the great war films of all time, but a genuine film classic...Maybe it's because producer Spiegel (The African Queen, Lawrence of Arabia, Passage to India), was a stickler for authenticity who routinely shot on location. For this film, cast and crew spent 251 days in the humid jungles of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), working alongside local laborers to construct a historically accurate replica of a Japanese prison camp and a 90-foot-tall bridge that spanned three city blocks...Maybe it's because Spiegel and director David Lean collaborated with blacklisted screenwriters Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman to bring new dimensions to a novel penned by Pierre Boulle, who also wrote Planet of the Apes. Or maybe it's the anti-war theme, coupled with one of the most stirring marching songs ever produced for the cinema, that makes Bridge a classic. Or maybe it's the great performances. - James Plath
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