20 Prison Movies You Must See Before You Die

2. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

"A word to you about escape," says the camp commandant Colonel Saito, addressing the prisoners of a P.O.W. camp in David Lean's 1957 masterpiece The Bridge on the River Kwai. "There is no barbed wire. No stockade. No watchtower. They are not necessary. We are an island in the jungle. Escape is impossible. You would die." And so the Allied prisoners are forced to work on the Burma railway to construct the bridge of the movie's title, as Alec Guinness - playing a British officer - offers up what is arguably his greatest screen performance. What can be said about The Bridge on the River Kwai that has not been said before, then? It is ludicrously beautiful anti-war film, full of great scenes, twists, and an ending that has to go down as one of cinema's greatest ever. Few films really justify being called "epic," but with David Lean it was always warranted: The Bridge on the River Kwai is perhaps the most epic prison film ever made. Each and every one of its 161 minutes is something to behold - no wonder people still can't get enough of it all these years later. Complex, heroic and sad, this is cinema at its best.