The English Patient

It’s a bit disheartening to see that 1996’s Best Picture-winning film, The English Patient, has been turned against in recent years, reexamined negatively as if it were not deserving of its win. This epic romantic war drama has been accused of being overlong, dry, and boring, the kind of film that cries out “Oscar bait”. People in general look at it nowadays as a product of the supposed downfall of the Academy Awards, where the winners do not reflect the popular tastes of the time. The Academy, in turn, has tried to address this issue in more recent years by first expanding the Best Picture category to up to ten films, in the hopes that more popular movies will make the cut, and even more recently, talks have been had about adding a Best Popular Film category. The latter option seems out-of-place at the Oscars, as it is better suited for such award shows as the MTV Movie Awards or the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards. The Oscars are supposed to be awards for the best made films, not a popularity contest, although there have been times when it seems that is the way the vote went anyway. 

People turning on The English Patient feels like a symptom of the modern era, where people have little patience for longer, more introspective films. Audiences in general can handle a long film so long as it has a ton of action or humor; The Lord of the Rings, Dune, and One Battle After Another are modern examples of that. But when a film is slower-paced, such as The King’s Speech or The Irishman, people review bomb their displeasure in an attempt to sink something that wasn’t made with them in mind. I first saw The English Patient back in 1999 when it was new to DVD, and I enjoyed it for what it was. But over the years, as I heard more and more people slamming it for one reason or another, my opinion shifted with the tide, and I began to think of it as a long and boring slog of a film. 

Then I watched it again this morning in preparation for this review, expecting that memory to be an accurate one. I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. What I found was a far more interesting story than what I remembered. Granted, I am not the same person I was twenty-five years ago, and my taste in films has refined a lot, but I believe that a big part of my misconception was due to the prevalent voices of those who were vocal in their hatred for it. Word of mouth can be a strong influence on the perception of a film, raising it up from obscurity or trampling it down to infamy. While this is not an action-packed spectacle, nor a yukfest, it is a powerful drama about love and loss during a time of upheaval in the world. It burns hot with passion, tragedy, and even revenge, and the ending is one filled with sorrow and tears. It’s a powerhouse of acting performances and leaves us wondering yet again just what Ralph Fiennes will have to do to finally get his Oscar. Between this, Schindler’s List, and Conclave, he has given performances worthy of the win, yet he is still empty-handed. It even became a bit of humor at the 2025 Oscars, poking fun at this oversight during the opening monologue. 

The English Patient is a story told from two different perspectives: that of Hana (Juliette Binoche) and the backstory of her patient, Almásy (Ralph Fiennes), who is badly burned and claims to have no memory of who he is. Hana is a French-Canadian Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps nurse during World War II who has suffered two recent tragedies. The first is the loss of her boyfriend, who was a soldier, and the second is her friend Jan, a fellow nurse who was killed while the hospital was relocating because of the war. Feeling that she is bad luck to those around her, she volunteers to stay behind in a bombed-out monastery along with her patient, Almásy, whose wounds are severe and he is suffering from all the travel. While at the monastery, she is joined by two men: Lieutenant Kip Singh (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh sapper in the British Indian Army posted in the area to clear out German mines and booby traps; and David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), a thief who was tortured, had his thumbs cut off, and has reasons of his own for being there. 

Hana’s patient claims to not remember who he really is, but Caravaggio believes otherwise and seems to know who Almásy is. Slowly, over the course of the film, we will get Almásy’s story, too, and why he would choose not to remember it. His story involves a Royal Geographical Society archaeological and surveying expedition in the Sahara.  During this expedition, he falls in love with Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), the wife of Geoffrey (Colin Firth), their pilot who assists in aerial surveys with their plane. His affair with Katharine doesn’t go unnoticed, and it leads to tragedy when Geoffrey tries to kill him with his plane, crashing it and dying, while gravely injuring his wife. Almásy exchanges maps with the Germans for gasoline for another plane but is unable to get her to safety in time. Meanwhile, the information he gave to the Germans leads to the capture and torture of Caravaggio, putting him on a path for vengeance against all who were responsible for his wounds. 

Almásy is shot down while trying to fly Katharine’s body back, resulting in severe burns all over his body. He cannot forgive himself for all the harm he has caused both to her and her husband, as well as later learning that his good friend and fellow member of the Royal Geographical Society, Madox (Julian Wadham), upon hearing that Almásy gave valuable information to the Germans, committed suicide. All of this leaves him with no will to live anymore, and all he wants to do is die so that he can forget all the pain.

Even those who hadn’t read Michael Ondaatje’s novel before seeing the film could see where this film was headed. We know early on that Almásy isn’t being entirely truthful about having amnesia and that he is hiding more from himself than from those around him. We also suspect early on that he has developed feelings for Katharine, the only woman in the Society. This is all but confirmed when the two are trapped inside a broken-down jeep, while waiting out a massive sandstorm. The sexual tension is palpable between them. Despite the obviousness of this reveal, the filmmakers have elected to draw it out a bit, refusing to allow this tension to burst until well into the picture. By the time we get to the end, the film has answered all the mysteries that have been set up and left us with just the wounds of their doomed love. This is not something that can be picked up entirely on a single viewing.

There is so much backstory revealed over the course of this picture that it would be a disservice to go into too much detail here. I will not spoil all of it here. Needless to say, when all is revealed and Caravaggio makes his decision, we fully understand why he was on the path he was on and why he makes the final decision that he does. Dafoe is a delight to watch in a role that takes us a bit of time to figure out, but when we finally do, we are opened to the great depths of his own personal suffering. Binoche’s Hana is a woman whose heart has been so wounded by the war that she is afraid to love again lest she bring more death with her self-proclaimed curse. This fear increases as she grows closer to Kip, a man whose very position in the war puts him in grave danger much of the time. Even Katharine merits our sympathies as a woman in a marriage to a man that she has no passion for. We get so little about their relationship other than that she doesn’t love him the way that he loves her. Her choice to pursue Almásy leads to one of the great tragedies in cinematic history. 

This is a beautifully shot film along the lines of something David Lean would have made. It evokes the period in which it was set and really makes us feel like we are there out in the desert with them. There is so much tension in the scenes in Italy and especially during the moments when Kip is tasked with diffusing German bombs. But the overall feeling is that of sorrow and despair. Even during the love scenes, when passion is at its highest, we feel the sorrow because we know where it is leading. This is a well-constructed film about the turmoil of wartime, the complications of romance, and the tragedies of life. Anthony Minghella has crafted a true masterpiece of humanity and it is well deserving of its Best Picture Oscar. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Saul Zaentz (won)

Best Director: Anthony Minghella (won)

Best Actor: Ralph Fiennes

Best Actress: Kristin Scott Thomas

Best Supporting Actress: Juliette Binoche (won)

Best Screenplay - Based on Material Previously Produced or Published: Anthony Minghella

Best Art Direction: Stuart Craig and Stephenie McMillan (won)

Best Cinematography: John Seale (won)

Best Costume Design: Ann Roth (won)

Best Film Editing: Walter Murch (won)

Best Original Dramatic Score: Gabriel Yared (won)

Best Sound: Walter Murch, Mark Berger, David Parker, and Christopher Newman (won)

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Release Date: November 15, 1996

Running Time: 162 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, Colin Firth, Julian Wadham, and Jürgen Prochnow

Directed by: Anthony Minghella