Release Year: 1996

Genre: Drama, Romance, War

Director: Anthony Minghella

Writer: Anthony Minghella; Michael Ondaatje (novel)

Stars: Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes

We miss the days when love stories were torrid. 

Modern-day love stories are just too dang cheerful. Unless they involve kids dying of cancer, you can be sure that the main characters of today's love stories will end up happily ever after and skipping through fields of daisies, or being adorkable and planning their themed wedding.

Whatever happened to the romantic tragedies of the past, when love was passionate but doomed, or true but prevented by messed up families, or just plain forbidden?

The English Patient brings torrid back. 

It's one of the romantic-est and tragic-est of romantic tragedies. It's also one of the sexiest. Released in 1996 but set circa World War II, it hearkens back to the golden days of Hollywood cinema when lovers were doomed from the start. In this case, a mapmaker has a hot-hot-hot affair with a married woman, and (not surprise), it ends terribly.

The English Patient was directed by Anthony Minghella and produced by super-producer Saul Zaentz. (He has a cape and everything.) Minghella is famous for his book adaptations, including Cold Mountain (2003) and The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). This blockbuster also made a bonafide sex symbol out of Voldemort-to-be Ralph "Rafe" Fiennes, who stars alongside Kristen Scott Thomas (Mission: Impossible) and Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, American Psycho).

This film won all of the accolades:

• The Golden Globe for Best Picture—Drama
• 12 Academy Award nominations and 9 wins, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress for Juliette Binoche
• $231 million worldwide against a $27 million budget
• A shout out in Seinfeld

Yeah, you know you've made it when you're the plot of a Seinfeld episode.

We're devoted Seinfeld fans. We've watched every episode approximately five times—not just because it's hilarious, but also because it gets so many thing so right. Show mad respect to soup chefs. It's not a lie if you believe it. The bottom of the muffin is inferior.

But Seinfeld is totally, completely, unforgivably off the mark about one thing: The English Patient is an awesome movie. In fact, much like Elaine Benes' date, we "don't know if we can be with someone who doesn't like The English Patient."

Because, really, what's not to like? This movie has everything.

Torrid, heated sexcapades. Tender, sweet romance. War. Despair. Betrayal times a billion. Spies. Plane crashes. Explosions. Homicidal jealousy. Cave paintings. The crazy skull-imploding beauty of the Sahara Desert. This film weirdly got pigeonholed as a "date movie," but it's equally a "war movie" and a "spy movie." We counted: there are more violent moments than kissy-kissy moments—by a long shot.

So let's puncture all of Elaine Benes complaints about this movie, shall we?

#1: "It's too long."

Yeah, it's a long movie. It's long because it contains so much plot. Seriously, some multi-season HBO shows cram in less totally fascinating narrative twists and turns than The English Patient manages to do in less than three hours.

#2: "Quit telling your stupid story about the stupid desert."

Here's the thing: this movie contains three different stories. That English patient guy? He's only one of the characters. This movie also has the story of a Quebecois nurse in Italy, a Sikh who defuses bombs, a spy who gets his thumbs clipped off by the Nazis, and a British intelligence officer who's undercover as a rich boy idiot.

#3: "Sex in a tub doesn't work."

Oh, Elaine. No one has sex in a tub in this movie. They have sex in sumptuous hotel beds, an abandoned monastery, and in a spare room at a Christmas party.

Final score—Elaine Benes: 0. The English Patient: 9 Academy Awards. (Oh, and 3 more nominations.)