Production notes

The screenwriters, Carl Foreman and Michael Wilson, were on the Hollywood blacklist and even though living in exile in England could only work on the film in secret. The two did not collaborate on the script; Wilson took over after Lean was dissatisfied with Foreman's work. The official credit was given to Pierre Boulle (who did not speak English), and the resulting Oscar for Best Screenplay (Adaptation) was awarded to him. Only in 1984 did the Academy rectify the situation by retroactively awarding the Oscar to Foreman and Wilson, posthumously in both cases. Subsequent releases of the film gave them proper screen credit. David Lean claimed that producer Sam Spiegel cheated him out of his rightful part in the credits since he had had a major hand in the script. The film was relatively faithful to the novel, with two major exceptions. Shears, who is a British commando officer like Warden in the novel, becomes an American sailor who escapes from the POW camp. Also, in the novel, the bridge is not destroyed: the train plummets into the river from a secondary charge placed by Warden, but Nicholson (never realizing "what have I done?") does not fall onto the plunger, and the bridge suffers only minor damage. Boulle nonetheless enjoyed the film version, though he disagreed with its climax.

Although Lean later denied it, Charles Laughton was his first choice for the role of Nicholson. Laughton was in his habitually overweight state and was either denied insurance coverage or was simply not keen on filming in a tropical location. Cary Grant was offered the role of Nicholson but turned it down in favor of The Pride and the Passion to work with Marlon Brando before he was replaced by Frank Sinatra on that film. Guinness admitted that Lean "didn't particularly want me" for the role, and thought about immediately returning to England when he arrived in Ceylon and Lean reminded him that he was not the first choice. William Holden's deal—he received 10% of the film's gross receipts—was considered one of the best ever for an actor at the time.

Many directors were considered for the project, among them John Ford, William Wyler, Howard Hawks, Fred Zinnemann, and Orson Welles (who was also offered a starring role). The film was an international co-production between companies in Britain and the United States. Director David Lean clashed repeatedly with his cast members, particularly Guinness and James Donald, who thought the novel was anti-British. Lean had a lengthy row with Guinness over how to play the role of Nicholson; the actor wanted to play the part with a sense of humor and sympathy, while Lean thought Nicholson should be "a bore." On another occasion, they argued over the scene where Nicholson reflects on his career in the army. Lean filmed the scene from behind Guinness and angrily exploded when Guinness asked him why he was doing this. After Guinness was done with the scene, Lean said, "Now you can all fuck off and go home, you English actors. Thank God that I'm starting work tomorrow with an American actor (William Holden)." The film was made in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The bridge in the film was near Kitulgala. The Mount Lavinia Hotel was used as a location for the hospital. Guinness said that he subconsciously based his walk while emerging from "the Oven" on that of his eleven-year-old son Matthew, who was recovering from polio at the time, a disease that left him temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. Guinness reflected on the scene, calling it the "finest piece of work" he had ever done. Lean nearly drowned when he was swept away by the river current during a break from filming. In a 1988 interview with Barry Norman, Lean confirmed that Columbia almost stopped filming after three weeks because there was no white woman in the film, forcing him to add what he called "a very terrible scene" between Holden and a nurse on the beach. The filming of the bridge explosion was to be done on 10 March 1957, in the presence of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, then Prime Minister of Ceylon, and a team of government dignitaries. However, cameraman Freddy Ford was unable to get out of the way of the explosion in time, and Lean had to stop filming. The train crashed into a generator on the other side of the bridge and was damaged. It was repaired in time to be blown up the next morning, with Bandaranaike and his entourage present.

British composer Malcolm Arnold recalled that he had "ten days to write around forty-five minutes worth of music"—much less time than he was used to. He described the music for The Bridge on the River Kwai as the "worst job I ever had in my life" because of the time constraint. Despite this, he won an Oscar and a Grammy. The film's soundtrack was released on LP after the film (Columbia CL 1100). In 1990, Christopher Palmer arranged a concert suite for large orchestra for Arnold's 70th birthday. A memorable feature of the film is the tune that is whistled by the POWs—the first strain of the "Colonel Bogey March"—when they enter the camp. Gavin Young recounts meeting Donald Wise, a former prisoner of the Japanese who had worked on the Burma Railway. Young: "Donald, did anyone whistle Colonel Bogey ... as they did in the film?" Wise: "I never heard it in Thailand. We hadn't much breath left for whistling. But in Bangkok I was told that David Lean, the film's director, became mad at the extras who played the prisoners—us—because they couldn't march in time. Lean shouted at them, 'For God's sake, whistle a march to keep time to.' And a bloke called George Siegatz... —an expert whistler—began to whistle Colonel Bogey, and a hit was born." The march was written in 1914 by Kenneth J. Alford, a pseudonym of British Bandmaster Frederick J. Ricketts. For the film, Arnold wrote an accompanying counter-melody to the Colonel Bogey strain using the same chord progressions, then continued with his own "The River Kwai March", played by the off-screen orchestra taking over from the whistlers, though Arnold's march was not heard in completion on the soundtrack (apparently for copyright reasons). Mitch Miller had a hit with a recording of both marches.

The Bridge on the River Kwai was a commercial success. It was the highest-grossing film of 1957 in the United States and Canada and was also the most popular film at the British box office that year. According to Variety, the film earned estimated domestic box office revenues of $18,000,000 although this was revised downward the following year to $15,000,000, which was still the biggest for 1958 and Columbia's highest-grossing film at the time. By October 1960, the film had earned worldwide box office revenues of $30 million. The film was re-released in 1964 and earned a further estimated $2.6 million at the box office in the United States and Canada but the following year its revised total US and Canadian revenues were reported by Variety as $17,195,000.

Contemporary reviews were highly favorable. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised the film as "a towering entertainment of rich variety and revelation of the ways of men". Mike Kaplan, reviewing for Variety, described it as "a gripping drama, expertly put together and handled with skill in all departments." Kaplan further praised the actors, especially Alec Guinness, later writing "the film is unquestionably" his. William Holden was also credited for his acting for giving a solid characterization that was "easy, credible and always likeable in a role that is the pivot point of the story". Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times claimed the film's strongest points were for being "excellently produced in virtually all respects and that it also offers an especially outstanding and different performance by Alec Guinness. Highly competent work is also done by William Holden, Jack Hawkins and Sessue Hayakawa". Time magazine praised Lean's directing, noting he demonstrates "a dazzlingly musical sense and control of the many and involving rhythms of a vast composition. He shows a rare sense of humor and a feeling for the poetry of situation; and he shows the even rarer ability to express these things, not in lines but in lives." Harrison's Reports described the film as an "excellent World War II adventure melodrama" in which the "production values are first-rate and so is the photography." Among retrospective reviews, Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars, noting in 1999 that it is one of the few war movies that "focuses not on larger rights and wrongs but on individuals", but commented that the viewer is not certain what is intended by the final dialogue due to the film's shifting points of view. Slant magazine gave the film four out of five stars. Slant stated in 2010 that "the 1957 epic subtly develops its themes about the irrationality of honor and the hypocrisy of Britain's class system without ever compromising its thrilling war narrative", and in comparing to other films of the time said that Bridge on the River Kwai "carefully builds its psychological tension until it erupts in a blinding flash of sulfur and flame." On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film received an approval rating of 96% based on 105 reviews, with an average rating of 9.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "This complex war epic asks hard questions, resists easy answers, and boasts career-defining work from star Alec Guinness and director David Lean." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 88 out of 100 based on 15 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Tamil film director Balu Mahendra observed the shooting of the film at Kitulgala, Sri Lanka during his school trip and was inspired to become a film director. Warren Buffett said it was his favorite film. In an interview, he said that "[t]here were a lot of lessons in that... The ending of that was sort of the story of life. He created the railroad. Did he really want the enemy to come in across it?"

American Film Institute lists:

1998 — AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies — No. 13 2001 — AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills — No. 58 2006 — AFI's 100 Years...100 Cheers — No. 14 2007 — AFI's 100 Years...100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition) — No. 36 The film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry in 1997. The British Film Institute placed The Bridge on the River Kwai as the 11th greatest British film.