New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search

Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

sort by name

sort by score

38 12 Rounds
xx Baby on Board
xx Bob Funk
62 Cherry Blossoms
38 Confessions of a Shopaholic
38 Crossing Over
38 Dark Streets
58 Defiance
45 Fanboys
31 Fired Up
37 Forever Strong
34 Friday the 13th
72 Gran Torino
47 He's Just Not That Into You
47 Inkheart
52 International, The
45 Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience
50 Madea Goes to Jail
51 Morning Light
51 My Bloody Valentine 3-D
29 New in Town
28 Nobel Son
40 Outlander
39 Paul Blart: Mall Cop
56 Phoebe in Wonderland
36 Pink Panther 2
xx Powder Blue
69 Revolutionary Road
20 Spinning Into Butter
17 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
64 Thousand Years of Good Prayers, A
63 Tokyo!
74 Two Lovers
56 Valkyrie
91 Waltz with Bashir
22 What Goes Up

Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

English Patient, The
Miramax Films


6.4

based on 31 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 37 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

Internet Movie Database

MPAA RATING: R for sexuality, some violence and language

Starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Willem Dafoe, Kristin Scott Thomas, Naveen Andrews, and Colin Firth

An epic film of adventure, intrigue, betrayal and love about four strangers whose diverse lives become inextricably connected. (Miramax Films)

GENRE(S):	Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Anthony Minghella Michael Ondaatje (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Anthony Minghella
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 24, 1998 Video: March 24, 1998 Theatrical: November 15, 1996
RUNNING TIME:	160 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Awash in heart-rending emotions and gorgeous images, this is a movie to lose yourself in.

100

Film.com Sean Means

It feels like a dream that a movie could have this kind of poetic grace and epic sweep, or could be so faithful to its source and still work so perfectly as a film.

100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Rising to crescendos of emotion usually reached only by tenors and sopranos, these characters are the beneficiaries of the luminous writing of the novel and screenplay as well as the expert performances of the actors, especially Scott Thomas.

100

Washington Post Rita Kempley

A tour de force so haunting that other films can't exorcise the memory of its radiant cast, exquisite craftsmanship or complex system of metaphors. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a movie.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

A mesmerizing film that is the most stunning, tempestuous love story in a decade or two of movie making.

100

Time Richard Corliss

To transport picturegoers to a unique place in the glare of the earth, in the darkness of the heart--this, you realize with a gasp of joy, is what movies can do.

100

The Onion (A.V. Club) John Krewson

Heartbreakingly beautiful film, a brilliant adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's equally beautiful novel, is a sort of Casablanca for our time.

100

Salon.com Gary Kamiya

Minghella, by brilliantly editing the romantic scenes down to a few jagged, archetypal moments, captures something of the sacred whirlwind.

100

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

A stunning feat of literary adaptation as well as a purely cinematic triumph.

100

Baltimore Sun Ann Hornaday

A big, fat old-fashioned gush of passion as drawn through a post-modernist prism that makes it less easily comprehensible but more beguiling.

100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

The kind of movie you can see twice--first for the questions, the second time for the answers.

100

San Francisco Examiner G. Allen Johnson

Minghella is an artist and he has painted himself a masterpiece.

Film.com Mary Brennan

Minghella shapes Ondaatje's sprawling story into something miraculously cohesive, and at the movie's center is one of the most compelling love stories in recent memory.

Slate Sarah Kerr

The acting of this central trio is brilliant, in part because the crisscrossing of these and other stories and the gorgeous backdrops take some of the weight off: The characters are free to be flawed without losing our interest.

Newsweek David Ansen

Succeeds stunningly on its own terms.

Mr. Showbiz F. X. Feeney

Astonishingly deep and moving.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Feels brief and dreamlike. Waking from its spell, you touch your face, and it's wet, but you're smiling anyway.

USA Today Mike Clark

The big story here is Kristin Scott Thomas' captivating performance.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is one of the year's most unabashed and powerful love stories, using flawless performances, intelligent dialogue, crisp camera work, and loaded glances to attain a level of eroticism and emotional connection that many similar films miss.

TNT RoughCut Wendy Wilson

The power of the Fiennes/Scott Thomas affair burns through the clutter (imagine "Casablanca" meets "Map of the Human Heart") making The English Patient a theatrical must-see.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

The two films bursting out of The English Patient (a chamber piece and a David Lean dune epic) require a juggling of tone, pace and scale that might easily defeat a director more seasoned than Minghella.

Film.com Robert Horton

It's got both the sweeping spectacle and the keen, tactile sense of human intimacy.

Film.com Tom Keogh

The look, the feel, the brood-y, brilliant cast: This is an oddly affecting movie, all right, a jellyroll of Bronte and Hemingway.

Variety Staff (Not credited)

A respectable, intelligent but less than stirring adaptation of an imposingly dense and layered novel.

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

A smashing success on its own terms, though as a transcendent love story it lacks the firm foundation in human reality that characterizes Lars Von Trier's superior "Breaking the Waves."

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Boasts the elements of something greater than a love story. Too bad it devotes them to something less than a great love story. [22 November 1996, Friday, p.A]

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Lusts for catharsis yet never quite gets there, because, for all of its bitter romantic anguish, it ultimately coalesces in your head rather than your heart.

Dallas Observer Michael Sragow

This intelligent, affecting work is squishy at the core.

TV Guide Frank Lovece

Kristin Scott Thomas is the film's revelation. She takes center stage as a smart, fearless woman who's utterly irresistible.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's reasonably well told and well mounted but little more.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The English Patient is excitingly promising. Then the screenplay goes rotten, like an overripe melon. [Dec. 9, 1996]

The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 37 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Amaya gave it a10:
Achingly beautiful. Fiennes is perfect in this movie. I did enjoy the book earlier, but I like the movie more. I have never seen a movie that so amply reflects the book and does justice to the literal counterpart.

Rhys gave it a10:
This film is nothing short of mesmeric. Beautifully written, superbly acted, heart-rending and simply transcendental, it is unquestionably the best film I have ever seen.

Josh B. gave it a10:
In the epic style of David Lean, Anthony Minghella has crafted a wonderful and engrossing film from Ondaatje's poetic novel.

Terry S. gave it a10:
This movie was an example of the purest form of story-telling: a kind of pingpong between periods and people involves in the story. It was brilliant to have a burned up man, barely alive reminiscing and offering bits and pieces of his past...superb.

Rod G. gave it a1:
There are very few movies worthy of a zero rating but this comes close. Seinfeld was right about this one.

Kate B. gave it a10:
I think that the people who rated this low must be either mad or deluding themselves because this is an amazing film. All the way through it provokes emotion, and the end is powerful.

Al M. gave it a3:
Do you realyy believe that the Allies having to take care of a badly burned man in NorthAfrica found best to send him to Italy in the hands of a field hospital. The story is an accumulation of illogical developments that were totally unnecessary to portray a destructive passion that was big by itself. I give a 3 in recognition of cinematographer work.

English Patient, The Miramax Films

English Patient, The
Miramax Films