Say what you want about the Nazis. They knew how to name things. Operation Retribution, Operation Barbarossa, Operation Iron Fist…. The British… Hey let’s call it Market Garden.
A Bridge Too Far (1977): 9 out of 10: One interesting thing is to read contemporaneous critics and realise they did not know how good they had it. To them, A Bridge Too Far was just another in an endless run of tiled cast posters with all the stars. And if you do a search of tiled cast posters, A Bridge Too Far is often used as a classic example.
And yes, A Bridge Too Far is overstuffed with “Stars”. And yes, some of them (cough Robert Redford and James Cann cough) really probably don’t belong in the film. But critics, with their heads dancing with similarly marketed disaster films and “event” pictures, missed the forest for the trees. This is one of the best and most historically accurate World War 2 films ever made.
Richard Attenborough’s A Bridge Too Far is one of those films that manages to be both sweeping and oddly claustrophobic at the same time, the kind of war epic that leaves you both awestruck and exhausted. Released in 1977, the movie takes on the ill-fated Operation Market Garden, the Allies’ ambitious but ultimately bungled attempt to punch through Nazi-occupied Holland in late 1944. It’s all about bridges, strategy, and the unfortunate tendency of generals to assume everything will go exactly according to plan. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.
At its core, the film is less about the bang-bang of war and more about the hubris behind it. We’re treated to long strategy sessions where maps are pored over and egos clash, inter-cut with boots-on-the-ground sequences where paratroopers are dropped into hostile territory and armored divisions find themselves stuck on narrow Dutch roads.
Each bridge is a prize, each delay a disaster, and each officer utterly convinced that his bit of the plan will go off without a hitch. Of course, the Germans, who were supposed to be disorganized and on their heels, turns out fritz was far more prepared than Allied intelligence had suggested, which made for more than a few moments of cinematic schadenfreude.
Because A Bridge Too Far juggles so many perspectives, the movie operates almost like a military mosaic. We see the optimism of the planners, the grit of the soldiers in foxholes, the desperation of civilians caught in the crossfire, and the dawning realization that what was billed as the war-ending masterstroke is rapidly turning into a logistical nightmare. The battles are staged with remarkable detail. Attenborough spared no expense in tanks, extras, or explosions but it’s the small moments that hit hardest, like a commander insisting on pressing forward while his men are bleeding out in ditches, or a local family trying to keep some semblance of normalcy while their city collapses around them.
Tonally, A Bridge Too Far isn’t triumphalist in the way many World War II films of the era were; instead, it’s almost an anti-epic, one that revels in the spectacle of failure. There’s grandeur in the filmmaking, yes, but it’s undercut by a persistent sense of futility, reminding us that bravery and careful planning aren’t always enough when arrogance and bad intel are in the mix. The result is a war film that feels less like a victory lap and more like a cautionary tale, a cinematic reminder that even the best-laid plans can go spectacularly sideways. And if you come away feeling a little worn out yourself, well, that was probably the point.
The Longest Day and A Bridge Too Far make for a fascinating double feature because, on paper, they look like cinematic siblings: massive all-star casts, sprawling runtimes, meticulous attention to historical detail, and a desire to capture the scale of World War II. But while The Longest Day plays as a victory march with the occasional stumble, A Bridge Too Far feels more like a cautionary sermon. One is about triumph against the odds; the other is about hubris slamming face-first into reality.
Stylistically, The Longest Day is crisp, almost old-fashioned in its straightforwardness. Shot in black and white, it offers a broad overview of D-Day that borders on celebratory. There’s tension, yes, but the outcome is never in doubt; the Allies land, they push forward; they win. It has a glossy, patriotic sheen (I mean John Wayne is in it for God’s sake) that made it a favorite for veterans who wanted their sacrifice remembered with dignity. A Bridge Too Far, on the other hand, is drenched in the 1970s sensibilities: longer takes, grittier realism, Gene Hackman, a bit of cynicism, and an insistence that wars are not just won by pluck and bravery, but lost through overconfidence and bureaucratic blindness.
A Bridge Too Far is more in the style of Saving Private Ryan. It is quite gory in places and, even more than Saving Private Ryan, a lot of puppy eyed civilians and soldiers are going to die unnecessary and brutal deaths.
The Good
The Good: It is impossible to show the scale of the allied forces on film. The allies had over five thousand aircraft and gliders for Operation Market Garden. Over 1,500 tanks (mostly Sherman) and armored personnel carriers trudged up a narrow two-lane highway. A Bridge Too Far comes really close to giving us that scale.
Attenborough used real equipment in all the scenes, which simply gives a level of realism that is almost impossible to duplicate. He also often filmed in many of the same locations the battles took place. As war films go, A Bridge Too Far has few equals.
The human stories are well told. I am shocked this film got a PG rating. It does not shy away from the gore. Children and old people are no safer from being killed than the soldiers. Attenborough juggles a lot of different stories, and while I have some nits to pick below, he overall does a fantastic job.
Attenborough would direct Ghandi before eventually retiring from Hollywood and opening a theme park off the coast of Costa Rica. A Bridge Too Far really is a testament to his skill and vision as a director.
The Bad
The Bad: Remember when 1978’s Superman gave all the money to Marlon Brando for a glorified cameo? Yeah… That is Robert Redford in A Bridge Too Far. I like Robert Redford. I honestly do. And he plays a character named Julian in the film, so that is a bonus point. But good lord, he looks like he just came from brunch at the Beverly Hills Polo Lounge.
Throw some dirt on his uniform or something. Give him a wound, a scar, uncreased pants. A Bridge Too Far gave Redford two million dollars to show up for a few minutes in the middle of the movie and have people say, “hey that’s Robert Redford”. Outside of sending Cliff Clavin to his death, he really does nothing of note.
The Ugly
The Ugly: I like James Cann. I honestly do. He and his story are interesting. And his story is quite true. It simply does not belong in the movie. A Bridge Too Far already is stretching it with its run time. Cann never interacts with any other character or any other battles of the war. This is a personal story of finding his near-dead commander and forcing the medical staff to save said commander at gunpoint. A Bridge Too Far already has plenty of personal stories involving Dutch civilians (Watching Protip. Don’t grow too attached to any of them.) It really doesn’t need another.
Cann’s scenes are well done with plenty of action and a fun twist ending. It simply does not belong in an already overstuffed movie.
In Conclusion
In Conclusion: It takes awhile for ones 2025 brain to realise that there is no CGI in A Bridge Too Far. Those are all real tanks, real planes and real extras on the screen. That Attenborough stuck to the facts doggedly makes A Bridge Too Far probably one of the most accurate historical films ever made. (The few times Attenborough goes off the reservation, stick out like a sore thumb.)
The attention to detail in A Bridge Too Far is fantastic. It is not a perfect film. The star-studded nature of its cast sometimes hurts more than it helps. But it is a film that we simply do not make anymore. Those poor critics in 1977 did not know how good they had it.
Now here’s the kicker: they had more gliders than you got fruit flies on a ripe banana, thousands of the things, tow planes, Shermans, half-tracks, you name it. Whole thing was supposed to be, ya know, a bold masterstroke to end the war by Christmas, quick as a hiccup.
But, uh, like when ya try to carry too many beers at once, it kinda fell apart. Bridges got blown, the tanks were stuck in traffic. A real Worcester rush hour situation, and the poor British First Airborne at Arnhem? Well, let’s just say they were a bridge too far, Norm. Heh, hey, that’s where they got the movie title!
So in conclusion, Normie, Operation Market Garden was the largest airborne assault in history, and it proved once and for all that you don’t put all your tulips in one basket, if ya catch my drift.”
