Directed by David Lean and written by Terence Rattigan, The Sound Barrier is about the men who challenged the speed of sound, told from the viewpoint of central character, Sir John Ridgefield (Ralph Richardson).

Sir John Ridgefield, an oil tycoon and aircraft constructor, is determined to manufacture a supersonic jet that will travel faster than the speed of sound. His desire to reach this goal has already led to the death of his test pilot son (Denholm Elliot), and his daughter Susan’s (Ann Todd) fighter-pilot husband (Nigel Patrick). Shocked at the death of her husband and her father’s disregard of human life in his single-minded determination to achieve his goal, Susan walks out on him. Unperturbed, Ridgefield approaches another pilot with the challenge of piloting his test craft. The film marked a departure from the domestic or literary concerns which had characterized the director David Lean’s choice of subject matter to date. Its heroics pre-empted his later films Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962).