[5] It stars an ensemble cast, featuring Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Edward Fox, Elliott Gould, Gene Hackman, Anthony Hopkins, Hardy Krüger, Laurence Olivier, Ryan O'Neal, Robert Redford, Maximilian Schell and Liv Ullmann.

Independently produced by Richard and Joseph E. Levine, it was the second film based on a book by Ryan to be adapted for the screen (after The Longest Day) (1962).

At the 31st BAFTA Awards it won four out of eight nominated categories, including Best Supporting Actor for Edward Fox and Best Score for John Addison—who himself had served in the British XXX Corps during Market Garden.

Operation Market Garden involves 35,000 men being flown 300 miles (480 km) from airfields in England and dropped behind enemy lines in the Netherlands.

A British division, under Major-General Roy Urquhart, is to land near Arnhem and hold the bridge there, backed by a brigade of Polish paratroopers under General Stanisław Sosabowski.

Although the consensus is that resistance will consist entirely of inexperienced old men and Hitler Youth, reconnaissance photos show German tanks at Arnhem.

The replica gliders were tail-heavy and required a support post under the rear fuselage, with camera angles carefully chosen to avoid revealing this.

A two-seat Blaník sailplane, provided by a member of the London Gliding Club, Dunstable, was towed aloft for the interior takeoff shots.

[15] Sufficient American tanks, jeeps, and trucks of World War II vintage were found because many of the vehicles were being discarded from European military (almost entirely reserve) units, especially from Greece and Turkey.

Although a replica of the original road bridge in Arnhem existed, by the mid-1970s modern urban development surrounded it, making it impossible to use as a setting for a 1940s city.

[5] After United Artists agreed to pay $6 million for US and Canada distribution rights,[17] the film went on to become the sixth-most popular movie at the 1977 US box office.

Its critics consensus reads: "A Bridge Too Far is a war movie too long, although top-notch talent on both sides of the camera keeps the end result consistently watchable.

[21] Vincent Canby of The New York Times said further, "The movie is massive, shapeless, often unexpectedly moving, confusing, sad, vivid and very, very long.

"[22] James Caan and Anthony Hopkins were cited by many critics for the excellence of their performances in a film with hundreds of speaking roles and cameos by many of the period's top actors.

But why did anyone think that a film about a failed WWII operation, without any novelty of information or deepening of history or even differently spectacular action, should run five minutes less than three hours?

[24] Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four, describing it as such an exercise in wretched excess, such a mindless series of routine scenes, such a boringly violent indulgence in all the blood and guts and moans they could find, that by the end we're prepared to speculate that maybe Levine went two or even three bridges too far.

"[27] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, In strictly cinematic terms, the appeal of A Bridge Too Far is easy to state: it is spectacular in the size and range of its effects, earnestly well-acted by a starry and able cast, well-paced and swift despite its length, and marked by an evident attempt to give the balanced truth of a tragic episode from history.

[28] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post called it "an unusually conscientious and impressive war epic" that justified its high budget... in terms of careful period recreation, visual spectacle (the sequences depicting paratroop landings are particularly awesome), the mixture of exciting combat episodes with vivid human interest vignettes, an effort to establish a coherent, many-faceted view of a complicated and ill-fated military adventure, and a generally superior level of filmmaking intelligence and craftsmanship.

[30] To promote the film, scriptwriter William Goldman wrote a book titled Story of A Bridge Too Far as a favour to Joseph E.