100
The Bridge on the River Kwai is that rare film about something as seemingly black-and-white as World War II that is colored entirely in shades of gray, and the better for it.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
100
The New York Times by Bosley Crowther
Brilliant is the word, and no other, to describe the quality of skills that have gone into the making of this picture, from the writing of the script out of a novel by the Frenchman Pierre Boulle, to direction, performance, photographing, editing and application of a musical score.
50
For what it is, it ain't bad, though it serves mainly as an illustration of the ancient quandary of revisionist moviemakers: if all you do is systematically invert cliches, you simply end up creating new ones.
100
Possibly Lean's most complicated movie, Kwai is a towering work.
100
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
The post-World War II cinematic landscape is littered with big-budget movies about the conflict and the toll it took upon those who participated. Some of those pictures have become timeless classics and some are nearly forgotten. Few, if any, are as simultaneously thrilling, awe-inspiring, and tragic as The Bridge on the River Kwai
100
New York Daily News by Kate Cameron
Brilliant performances are to be credited to Alec Guinness, as the British colonel, who insists on sticking to the rules of the Geneva Conference governing prisoners of war, and Sessue Hayakawa as the stubborn, cruel, proud Japanese officer.
100
Chicago Sun-Times by Richard Roeper
The story in the jungle moves ahead neatly, economically, powerfully.
How can war be so confusing? The Bridge Over the River Kwai is a neat, economic, and powerful portrait of British education, and how it affects one's perceptions of right and wrong.