The Roger Ebert Experience selects, in the war category, the epic:
A Bridge Too Far
A Bridge Too Far is a
1977 epic war film based on the 1974
book of the same name by
Cornelius Ryan, adapted by
William Goldman. It was directed by
Richard Attenborough.
The film tells the story of
Operation Market-Garden, and its ultimate failure, the
Allied attempt to break through
German lines and seize several bridges, with the main objective the bridge over the
Lower Rhine (Neder Rijn) River, in the occupied
Netherlands during
World War II. The name for the film comes from a comment made by British Lieutenant-General
Frederick A.M. Browning, deputy commander of the
First Allied Airborne Army, who told
Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery before the operation, "I think we may be going a bridge too far."
The ensemble cast includes
Dirk Bogarde,
James Caan,
Michael Caine,
Sean Connery,
Denholm Elliott,
Elliott Gould,
Edward Fox,
Gene Hackman,
Anthony Hopkins,
Jeremy Kemp,
Laurence Olivier,
Robert Redford,
Liv Ullmann,
Maximilian Schell,
Hardy Krüger and
Ryan O'Neal. The music for the film was scored by
John Addison, who was a soldier with the British XXX Corps during Operation Market Garden.