Based on Pierre Boulle’s 1952 novel titled Le Pont de la Rivière Kwai (which is French for The Bridge Over the River Kwai), The Bridge on the River Kwai is set in the year 1943, where the Japanese army is using prisoners of war as slave labor to further its war effort. An American Naval officer by the name of Shears (William Holden) is one of only two prisoners to have survived the forced construction of the camp that is now under the command of the harsh Japanese Colonel Saito (Sessue Hayakawa). The camp is soon restocked by fresh British bodies, led by the stalwart Colonel Nicholson (Alec Guinness), who are tasked with the construction of a nearby bridge that will connect railways between Bangkok and Rangoon. Nicholson and Saito immediately square off, with Nicholson refusing to obey orders for he and his officers to participate in manual labor, an act expressly forbidden by the Geneva Convention and defiantly ignored by Saito. What follows is a battle of wits with neither man conceding to the other, no matter how harshly Saito treats Nicholson or how he threatens his men and officers. Meanwhile, Shears manages to escape from the camp and is several days later returned to allied-controlled territory where he is tasked with spearheading a mission to destroy the vital bridge over the river Kwai before it's put into general operation.

When Columbia Pictures bought the film rights to the novel, many directors were considered for the project, including John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, and Orson Welles (who was also offered a starring role), before settling on British filmmaker David Lean. Carl Foreman was originally hired to write the screenplay, but Lean replaced him with Michael Wilson after having been dissatisfied with his work. Both screenwriters had to work in secret, as they were on the Hollywood blacklist and had fled to England in order to continue working. As a result, author Pierre Boulle, who did not speak English, was credited for the screenplay.

​After having its world premiere in England a couple months earlier, The Bridge on the River Kwai was released in the United States on December 14th, 1957, where it became the highest-grossing film of that year. On March 26th, 1958, it won 7 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director (David Lean), Best Actor (Alec Guinness), Best Adapted Screenplay (which went to Pierre Boulle at first, before being posthumously awarded to Carl Foreman & Michael Wilson in 1984), Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score. In fact, the one award that the film didn’t end up taking home was Best Supporting Actor for Sessue Hayakawa. Many years later, subsequent releases of the film gave Foreman & Wilson the proper screenwriting credits they deserved.