David Lean · 1957 · survival

David Lean's 1957 war epic. British POWs under Colonel Nicholson are forced to build a railway bridge over the River Kwai in the Thai jungle for their Japanese captors - and Nicholson, obsessed with his men's morale, builds it too well. Meanwhile a commando team sets out from Ceylon through the jungle to blow the very same bridge, toward a shattering collision of duty and madness.

1. 1
   Ceylon

   The Allied base in Ceylon from which a small commando team, including an escaped prisoner, is dispatched on a secret mission back into the jungle to destroy the strategic railway bridge.

2. 2
   The jungle camp

   The Japanese prison camp on the River Kwai in Thailand, where Colonel Nicholson's captured men labor - and where his pride drives him to build the enemy a magnificent bridge.

3. 3
   The bridge

   The finished span over the river, wired with explosives by the approaching commandos, where the collision of Nicholson's obsession and the raid brings the story to its devastating end.