The movie A Bridge Too Far is a historical telling of the failed attempt to capture several bridges over the Rhine in Holland during World War II in a campaign called Operation Market-Garden.

The film has extreme realism of wartime military scenes, actual footage of large paratroop operations, realistic military vehicles, realistic military problems and realistic casualties. Rather long at about three hours, it maintains consistently high quality though it definitely lacks anything remotely like a "Hollywood" ending. The movie's many concurrent subplots mostly do not converge and end "neatly", as lovers of American movies might expect of a big-budget action movie; some may find this slightly unsatisfying. Many people will undoubtedly connect this film with Saving Private Ryan. A Bridge Too Far is slightly less graphic in its portrayal of violence, but shares many of the same undertones. The movie may be criticised for the lack of character development, as there is not really any particular set of characters in the movie about which the audience really cares deeply. The fact it is loaded with "big" stars will undoubtedly be a source of entertainment in itself for some, but unfortunately, few of them are given enough screen time to really develop into individuals characters you come to be fond of. I think this must be considered as one of the best war movies ever made from a technical standpoint, and probably one of the best war movies I have seen in a long time.