THE ENGLISH PATIENT is an epic, sweeping adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's richly layered, WWII-era novel chronicling two periods in the life of European explorer Count Laszlo Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), whose torrid affair with a colleague's wife (Kristin Scott Thomas) is countered by the beginning of the war, allegations of Nazi sympathies, and disfiguring injuries. The patient's stay at the ruins of an Italian monastery under the care of an emotionally injured French-Canadian nurse (Juliette Binoche, who won an Oscar for the role) serves as a framing device for his intriguing story. Academy Award winner Anthony Minghella directs this film that is at once incredibly modern and a well-crafted throwback to classic Hollywood epics of yesteryear.