The Bridge is a 2006 documentary film by Eric Steel spanning one year of filming at the Golden Gate Bridge which crosses the Golden Gate entrance to San Francisco Bay, connecting the city of San Francisco, California to the Marin Headlands of Marin County, in 2004.

The film shows a number of suicides, and features interviews with family and friends of some of the identified people who had thrown themselves from the bridge that year and one person who had jumped previously and survived.

[9] The four-second fall from the Golden Gate Bridge sends a person plunging 245 feet (75 m) at 75 miles per hour (121 km/h) to hit the waters of the San Francisco Bay "with the force of a speeding truck meeting a concrete building."

Television crews covered the scene as bridge officials managed to stop 14 prospective jumpers, among them a man with a sign reading "500" pinned to his T-shirt.

The first jumper caught with the telephoto lens was not behaving as filmmakers expected—crying and weeping—but, rather, was jogging, talking on his cellphone and laughing; he then suddenly put his things away and leaped to his death.

The crew members were trained in suicide prevention prior to filming,[13] and had their phones programmed to call the bridge authority if they suspected someone was about to jump.

In his permit application to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, a government agency that does not have any jurisdiction over the bridge but that does manage nearby park areas, Steel wrote he intended "to capture the powerful, spectacular intersection of monument and nature that takes place every day at the Golden Gate Bridge.

He also wanted to keep the nature of the project secret in order to prevent anyone from jumping to have their deaths recorded in the documentary: "To me, the worst-case scenario was if word got out that we were filming around the clock.

"[21] In 2015, the New Zealand Film and Video Labeling Body requested Netflix to remove the documentary from its streaming service for being classified as "objectionable".

[3] The film received a 68% rating from 59 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critical consensus states: "Tactlessly morbid or remarkably sensitive?

Critics are divided on Eric Steel's unique documentary on the Golden Gate Bridge, wonder of the modern world and notorious suicide destination.

He praised its simple documentary approach, noting it was "remarkably free of religious cant and of cozy New Age bromides", calling it "one of the most moving and brutally honest films about suicide ever made.

"[26] Josh Rosenblatt of The Austin Chronicle gave the film three out of five stars and wrote: "The results are striking: an emotional and aesthetic whirlpool of horror, fascination, beauty, and resignation that would probably drown lesser movies but that gives 'The Bridge' an eerie power.