Rest Query to list all containers in all namespace in Kubernetes
You cant query the REST API for containers directly, since the smallest unit you can manage is a Pod, as is the same in your kubectl example.
You could however query all Pods and filter using a tool like jq. So obviously, replacing your $TOKEN and $CLUSTER as appropriate, the following should work:
curl -XGET -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" -H "Accept: application/json" https://$CLUSTER:8443/api/v1/pods?limit=500 | jq '.items[] .spec .containers[] .name'
Not sure how the above has any benefit over using the cli though. On a side note, if your using the oc tool, set the --loglevel=9 option and you will be able to see what request is being sent to the server.