The English Patient (1996)

In Anthony Minghella's Best Picture-winning epic - a great romantic war melodrama about star-crossed lovers in a turbulent, illicit extra-marital love affair in the North African desert (pre-WWII):

• the opening scene after the credits - in fact the ending of the film - a plane crash in Libya due to German anti-aircraft fire, that horribly burned the pilot (with a hardly-discernable female figure slumped lifelessly in the front seat) - followed by the caring ministrations of nurse Hana (Juliette Binoche) to the disfigured, wrongly-identified 'English Patient' after the plane crash - a critically-burned German-Hungarian pre-war cartographer Count Laszlo Almasy (Ralph Fiennes), who was now lying in a bombed-out Tuscan (Italian) monastery in a liberated section of Italy
• the third character of Canadian Intelligence Corps member David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), a professional thief and military spy suffering without thumbs after torture during a Nazi German interrogation, and vengefully suspecting that Almasy was the German spy who betrayed him
• the romantic scenes between French Canadian nurse Hana and Sikh British Army officer/bomb expert Kirpal "Kip" Singh (Naveen Andrews)
• the tense, terrifying and nerve-jangling sequence of Kip defusing an unexploded bomb in a muddy pit under a bridge - while a heavy armored tank approached and vibrated the road, and threatened to detonate the explosive
• the amnesiac Count's many fragmented flashbacks about his life and adulterous secret romance with recently-married and luminous Katharine "Kay" Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), the wife of fellow British cartographer Geoffrey Clifton (Colin Firth); included were his first romantic feelings for Katharine when he asked her to dance, in the company of her husband; and then during a Christmas celebration when she fainted in the heat, his kissing of her sweat-glistening neck and touching her bare shoulder, stroking of her leg, and secretive kisses
• the Count's loving bath scene (in which she shampooed his hair and then joined him) and love-making sequence

Love-Making Scenes

• the spectacular plane crash sequence, when Katharine's husband Geoffrey deliberately and suicidally (in revenge) flew his plane toward Almasy; the crash killed Geoffrey and seriously wounded Katharine, but missed Almasy; seriously injured, she revealed that her husband had known of their affair: ("Poor Geoffrey. He knew. He must've known all the time. He was shouting, 'l love you, Katharine. l love you so much'")
• as Almasy carried her to a shelter, a site with cave paintings known as the Cave of Swimmers, she revealed she was wearing his gift to her - a silver thimble on a necklace, and admitted: "Of course, you idiot. I always wear it. I've always worn it. I've always loved you" - even though they had publically ended their affair

The Deadly Plane Crash

• the scene of Almasy caring for his severely-wounded love (with a broken ankle, wrist, and maybe some ribs) in the shelter after the devastating plane crash; he made a promise to her that he would walk to El Taj (a 3-day journey) and then return for her: (Katharine: "Do you promise? I wouldn't want to die here. I don't want to die in the desert. I've always had an elaborate funeral in mind. Particular hymns. And I know exactly where I want to be buried. In our garden where I grew up with a view of the sea. So promise me you'll come back for me" Almasy: "I promise - I'll come back for you. I promise - I'll never leave you")
• later, his delayed return to the cave after she had tragically died - when he carried her body out of the cave

Finding Katharine Dead in The Cave	The "Mercy Killing" - Morphine Overdose	Katharine's Final Letter

• in the final scene, Hana fulfilled Count Almasy's desire to die - via a massive overdose of morphine; as he died in the tearjerking ending, Katharine's final letter to him written in the cave was read to him by Hana (some in voice-over): ("...We die, we die rich with lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have entered and swum up like rivers. Fears we've hidden in, like this wretched cave. I want all this marked on my body. We're the real countries. Not the boundaries drawn on maps, the names of powerful men. I know you'll come and carry me out into the palace of winds. That's all I've wanted - to walk in such a place with you, with friends. An Earth without maps. The lamp's gone out and I'm writing in the darkness.")