Which 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean tells the story of British POWs building a railway bridge in Burma?

The 1957 epic war film directed by David Lean about British POWs building a railway bridge in Burma is The Bridge on the River Kwai.

The film is based on Pierre Boulle’s 1952 novel and uses the construction of the Burma Railway as its historical setting. In the story, British prisoners are forced to build a bridge over the River Kwai for the Japanese military. Colonel Nicholson, played by Alec Guinness, becomes increasingly obsessed with proving British engineering superiority—even while helping the enemy’s war effort.

The real Burma Railway was built in 1942–43 by Allied prisoners and Asian forced laborers under brutal conditions. The film’s characters and bridge story are fictionalized, and the famous bridge was not an exact recreation of a single historical structure. The film won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director.

It is often confused with The Great Escape, another famous POW film, but that story concerns an escape attempt from a German camp rather than railway construction in Southeast Asia.