Selected by the British Film Academy as the best film of 1952, The Sound Barrier is a bridge between Lean's earlier domestic dramas and his later epics of dreamers and visionaries. Inspired by a newspaper clipping on the death of a jet pilot, Lean spent three months researching the aerospace industry and its fight to reach the speed of sound, eventually creating a story of a driven industrialist (Ralph Richardson) who sacrifices all in order to create a supersonic plane. Two ex–military pilots soon fall under his spell, one after marrying his willful, independent daughter, the other for more tragic reasons. The film's domestic tableaux, complete with father-daughter dynamics, old-boy camaraderie, suburban married life, and the obligatory bar hidden in the bookshelf, give The Sound Barrier a defined English identity, but its visceral action photography and focus on driven heroes point toward Lean's future filmmaking.