The Bridge on the River Kwai is a 1957 British World War II film by David Lean based on "The Bridge over the River Kwai" by French writer Pierre Boulle.
After the surrender of Singapore in World War II, a unit of British soldiers are marched to a Japanese prison camp in western Thailand.
They are paraded before the camp commandant, who informs them of his rules;
all prisoners, regardless of rank, are to work on the construction of a bridge over the River Kwai to carry a new railway line.
The film is a work of fiction but borrows the construction of the Burma Railway in 1942–43 for its historical setting.
It stars William Holden, Alec Guinness, Jack Hawkins, and Sessue Hayakawa.
In 1997, this film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant"
and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.