Seven Years in Tibet stars Brad Pitt and David Thewlis, and has music composed by John Williams with a feature performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

When World War II begins in 1939, their German citizenship results in their imprisonment in a British prisoner-of-war camp in Dehradun in the Himalayas.

In 1939, Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer leaves behind his pregnant wife to join Peter Aufschnaiter in a team attempting to summit Nanga Parbat in India (now part of Pakistan).

When World War II begins in 1939, they are arrested by the British authorities for being enemy aliens, and are imprisoned in a prisoner-of-war camp in Dehradun in the Himalayan foothills, in the present-day Indian state of Uttarakhand.

Harrer's wife, Ingrid, who has given birth to a son he has not seen, sends him divorce papers from Austria, by then annexed by Nazi Germany.

The Tibetan senior official Ngawang Jigme also extends friendship to the two foreigners with gifts of custom-made Western suits.

Harrer opts to remain single to focus on his new job of surveying the land and avoid experiencing another failed relationship; much to the disappointment of his friends.

In 1945, Harrer plans to return to Austria upon hearing of the war's end; but his son Rolf sends him a cold letter in which he says that he is not his father.

During the treaty signing, Kungo Tsarong tells Harrer that if Jigme had not destroyed the weapons supply, the Tibetan guerrillas could have held the mountain passes for months or even years; long enough to appeal to other nations for help.

Out of disgust and contempt, he further humiliates the senior official by returning the jacket that Ngawang Jigme gave him as a present, a grave insult in Tibetan culture; as well as by throwing him onto the ground before storming off.

At the beginning of the film, Harrer, who notably climbed the north face of the Eiger in 1938, is hailed as a "German hero", and replies: "Thank you, but I'm Austrian."

The real-life Heinrich Harrer was in fact a Nazi SS Schutzstaffel NCO, and stated in his 1938 book that as a member of the German Alpine Association: "We climbed up the North Face of Eiger over the summit and up to our führer.

There was no air link until Lhasa Gonggar Airport was constructed in 1956—when the Dalai Lama visited Beijing in 1954, he used the still-incomplete road system.

[11] Seven Years in Tibet premiered on September 13, 1997, at the 1997 Toronto International Film Festival before a commercial release on October 8, 1997, in the United States and Canada where it opened in 3 theaters, grossing $46,130 in its first two days.

"[18] Ebert believed the film was told from the perspective of the wrong character and thought the casting of Pitt and Thewlis should have been reversed.