The English Patient
Alliance Atlantis Home Video | Release Date: November 15, 1996 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
86
METASCORE
Universal acclaim based on 31 Critic Reviews
Positive:
28
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Washington PostDesson Thomson
Awash in heart-rending emotions and gorgeous images, this is a movie to lose yourself in. Read full review
100
Film.comSean 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 TimesKenneth 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. Read full review
100
San Francisco ChroniclePeter Stack
A mesmerizing film that is the most stunning, tempestuous love story in a decade or two of movie making. Read full review
100
TimeRichard 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. Read full review
100
The A.V. ClubJohn Krewson
Heartbreakingly beautiful film, a brilliant adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's equally beautiful novel, is a sort of Casablanca for our time. Read full review
100
SalonGary Kamiya
Minghella, by brilliantly editing the romantic scenes down to a few jagged, archetypal moments, captures something of the sacred whirlwind. Read full review
100
The New York TimesJanet Maslin
A stunning feat of literary adaptation as well as a purely cinematic triumph. Read full review
100
Baltimore SunAnn 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-TimesRoger Ebert
The kind of movie you can see twice--first for the questions, the second time for the answers. Read full review
100
San Francisco ExaminerG. Allen Johnson
Minghella is an artist and he has painted himself a masterpiece. Read full review
100
Washington PostRita 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. Read full review
90
Mr. ShowbizF. X. Feeney
Astonishingly deep and moving.
90
Film.comMary 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.
90
SlateSarah 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. Read full review
90
NewsweekDavid Ansen
Succeeds stunningly on its own terms. Read full review
89
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Feels brief and dreamlike. Waking from its spell, you touch your face, and it's wet, but you're smiling anyway. Read full review
88
USA TodayMike Clark
The big story here is Kristin Scott Thomas' captivating performance. Read full review
88
ReelViewsJames 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. Read full review
85
TNT RoughCutWendy 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.
80
Film.comTom Keogh
The look, the feel, the brood-y, brilliant cast: This is an oddly affecting movie, all right, a jellyroll of Bronte and Hemingway.
80
Film.comRobert Horton
It's got both the sweeping spectacle and the keen, tactile sense of human intimacy.
80
L.A. WeeklyElla 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. Read full review
80
VarietyStaff (Not credited)
A respectable, intelligent but less than stirring adaptation of an imposingly dense and layered novel. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyOwen 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. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMark 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]
75
New York Daily NewsElizabeth 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." Read full review
70
Dallas ObserverMichael Sragow
This intelligent, affecting work is squishy at the core. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineFrank Lovece
Kristin Scott Thomas is the film's revelation. She takes center stage as a smart, fearless woman who's utterly irresistible. Read full review
50
The New RepublicStanley Kauffmann
The English Patient is excitingly promising. Then the screenplay goes rotten, like an overripe melon. [Dec. 9, 1996]
50
Chicago ReaderJonathan Rosenbaum
It's reasonably well told and well mounted but little more. Read full review
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