Oscars: Every Best Picture Winner Ever Ranked From Worst To Best

13. The Bridge On The River Kwai (1957)

Bridge on the river kwai
Columbia Pictures

David Lean's war epic is a one-of-a-kind war movie, and anything less wouldn't have allowed it to beat out 12 Angry Men and Witness for the Prosecution for Best Picture.

Alec Guinness gives perhaps the performance of his career - winning him his single Academy Award - in the lead role, fronting an early World War II movie that dared to dabble in soupy moral ambiguity, and paint a more dubious picture of both sides of the conflict.

The production is first-rate as you'd expect from Lean, and while the pacing could probably be tightened up in a few spots, even the dawdling moments help us feel down in the trenches with Guinness' Lt. Nicholson all the way to the grim finale.

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Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.