David Lean in scale and more extensively released internationally. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957) was based on a novel by Pierre Boulle recounting the story of British and American prisoners of war trying to survive in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. The film stars William Holden and Alec Guinness and became the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States. It won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor for Alec Guinness, who had battled with Lean to give more depth to his role as an obsessively correct British commander who is
The Bridge on the River Kwai was said to give a solid characterization and was "easy, credible and always likeable in a role that is the pivot point of the story". Balu Mahendra, the Tamil film director, saw the shooting of this film at Kitulgala, Sri Lanka during his school trip and was inspired to become a film director. The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. The British Film Institute placed "The Bridge on the River Kwai" as the 11th greatest British film. The 167-minute film was first telecast, uncut, by ABC-TV in color on the evening of 25