Rating: 
Summary: Heartwrenching masterpiece.
Review: The first time I saw this movie I was swept away by the beauty of the cinematography. I could hardly take in the whole of the movie because of the scenery. It didn't bother me to watch this movie over and over. I actually wasn't aware this was considered a "long" movie time-wise. I felt the movie flowed so well and so beautifully that I wasn't aware of the time. The story and the acting draw you in and won't let go. It happened to be on a movie channel again recently and, even though I have the VHS and DVD version, I couldn't help but stay up until the wee hours of the morning to watch it again..and still I wept tears at the end. This is one of the few movies that absolutely deserves all the accolades and none of the derision.
Rating:
Summary: Perfect
Review: This film is a must see, it is absolutley one of the best film ever to come out of Hollywood.
Rating:
Summary: Rewarding and intelligent
Review: This is a mystery story that lives up to the promise of that description. Not very many movies fit that bill so fully. Ralph Fiennes is Almasy, horribly burned after his plane is shot down, looking a bit like Boris Karloff in "The Mummy" but older, as Juliette Binoche nurses him in a ruined Italian monastery in the last days of World War II. He doesn't remember who he is - or maybe he just says he doesn't: doubts are sowed in the audience's mind and left there. But his story -perhaps remembered - unfolds in flashback. Here Fiennes looks rather more presentable and is doing a spot of mapmaking and exploring in North Africa and getting on the close side to Kirstin Scott Thomas's Katherine. Meantime in Italy, Willem Dafoe shows up - there is something seriously the matter with his hands and he and seems to know something a bit on the dark side about Almasy's past: perhaps these facts are connected in some way and we keep watching to find out what. The film's success depends on getting us interested in what's at the back of all this and keeping us that way (even when we find out...). And it delivers. The acting is consistently extraordinary - especially, no, on second thoughts, no "especially" about it, by "consistently" I mean consistently; the direction and cinematography excellent; and the writing literate and compelling.
Rating:
Summary: Best Picture ever to be so maligned by its viewers
Review: The English Patient took its rightful place as my favorite movie when I first saw it in 1997 (I wish I had caught it in theaters). It is only after reading some of the other reviews of this film posted online that I chose to write a review. People deserve to know the facts, and many of these reviews seem completely misinformed. Any reviewer who talks about "some boring English guy" obviously never made it through to the end of the movie. Almasy is NOT English, and that is woven throughout the film as a mystery of his true identity and the heart-breaking irony (revealed at the end) that he was called "The English Patient". The complaints about the length of this film are ridiculous - it's long, yes, but not as long as other renowned classics like Gone with the Wind or Lawrence of Arabia. And the pace of The English Patient will only seem slow to someone who desires nothing more than quick entertainment with no thought required. This film is a Best Picture Oscar winner!!! It's not supposed to give you a quick jolt of Hollywood glitz! Reviewers that tell you to watch this only once and then to not waste the time again are in the same group as those who tell you that the plot was confusing and hard to follow. Every time I watch this movie I get something new out of it. Some new bit of information clicks, some scene makes sense in a new context.
If you want to catch all the wonderful intricacies of the plot, watch it over and over again. And finally, for the many reviewers who seemed to consider the characters non-human and unapproachable and the story nothing more than recycled sentimental garbage, they missed a lot of the magic of this film. This ending never fails to make me cry, and the emotional range of the actors is incredible. And yes, it's a romance, so perhaps the man is too good to be true, and perhaps the woman is too lustful to be believable, but that's what films are all about. And as far as that particular media goes, I find The English Patient to be near perfection.
Rating: 
Summary: Best Picture? My foot
Review: The English Patient won best picture in 1996. And I do not understand why. Maybe, such as was the case with Titanic, it was such a bad year in movies they had to give it to some romance film. Naturally, the only ones who like it are intellectual critics, not every day people who want to see a MOVIE. This was a soap opera turned super long movie that failed to produce any interest or quality or substance to the viewers. Although I liked the period and setting the film was in, the plot is so stereotypical and predictable and dis-interesting, it ruins the film. A guy falls in love and gets involved with a married woman. Now, how many movies have this as their main theme? Hundreds. Originality in this movie is non existant. First of all, why do we want to see a movie about some English jerk, who isn't a very likeable guy in this movie, who has an affair with this woman during WWII? I mean already the plot is redundant, but the characters are blaw, they aren't enjoyable to watch or understand, they are difficult characters who are cold and distant. Naturally, there is no suspense in the romance of this film, because before you know it, the two main characters (Fiennes and Thomas) are tearing each other's clothes off and bathing naked together in a tub. Gee, how romantic. Is this really romance or just sex? Why couldn't Thomas' character play a little harder to get instead of being so easily willing to share her body with this jerk? It's almost as if the objective of this film was to create instant passion between the characters by making them have sex all the time, practically every time they meet. There is a lot more to romance than that, or at least there should be. This film, not to mention, is horribly boring. Takes forever to get the plot to move along, you can't stand any of the characters, nothing makes this film memorable but the sex scenes. In short, the sex ruins the film because it turns this story into a stereotypical, modern romance. It can't be original with its theme, no it has to borrow a redundant theme and just add sex to it. And presto! It wins an academy award. If you don't mind redundant themes, romance that includes too much sex, and unenjoyable characters then you will like this film. Me on the other hand, appreciate originality with the romance and plot. These films, such as this one, that get academy awards for best picture is exactly why I don't watch the oscars anymore.
Rating: 
Summary: Unsympathetic leads, interesting secondary characters
Review: I picked this up because it was so well reviewed and I have liked all of the actors involved, in other parts. I thought this movie would never end. The unending desert scenes made me parched and I wanted Ralph Fiennes to just get it over with and DIE halfway through the film. Maybe I just have no taste for high melodrama, but I think it's that the film is just an over-rated and pretentious bit of garbage. I found the leads, Lazlo and Katherine to be completely without chemistry - Fiennes chewing up scenery left and right, until all I could do was roll my eyes. Why were we supposed to feel sympathy for these two people who cheated on her perfectly amiable husband? No. Hated it. Sorry I spent my money.
Rating:
Summary: the best movie of 1996!!!!!!!!!!
Review: The English Patient is a beutiful movie. Minghella is a genius. The performances are top notch. Kristin Scott Thomas is great, Juliette Binoche is just as great if not better, but to me, it is Ralph Fiennes who steals the show, just like he did in Schindler's List when he played one of the most villianous characters on screen next to Tom Berenger in Platoon, but that's beside the point. Fiennes is great as the badly burned Count Almasy. One can weep for him when he loses his love "K" All in all the best picture of 1996. The cinematography is beautiful and the music is sad. I pity Count Almasy because of the way Fiennes portrayed him. Tommy Lee Jones stole the oscar from him in 93 and Geoffrey Rush stole it in 1996. It's about time the academy recognize Fiennes as a great actor.
Rating: 
Summary: Great film but the DVD lacks features
Review: "The English Patient" is a great film but the DVD edition sorely lacks any features. This is somewhat of a mystery to me since one of Anthony Minghella's later films "The Talented Mr. Ripley" has the full DVD treatment with commentary and I consider "Patient" to be a better film. Nevertheless, The English Patient is film-making at its best and worth seeing.
Rating:
Summary: The English Patient
Review: The beautiful cinematography in this film is in sharp contrast to the violation of a basic principle of good story telling. The characters are simply unlikable. Asking an audience to feel empathy for the two lead characters or their situation stretches the bounds of verisimilitude to the breaking point. By the end of the first fifteen minutes, you'll be praying for the two to be buried in a sandstorm. They are insufferable. The condolence hoped for the "heroine" left dying in some forgotten cave (she might still be out there!) is best reserved for anyone who successfully suffers through this disaster.
Rating:
Summary: Pretentious stinker
Review: An exceptionally annoying movie detailing the inexplicable love lives of two self absorbed characters you absolutely cannot care for if you have any acquaintance with real human beings. Unquestionably some nice photography and some good acting but what a dreadfullly boring movie about detestable people. Avoid unless you have no life and enjoy emotional self flagellation.
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