Passes the Bechdel test
The English Patient
1996. Directed by Anthony Minghella, written by Michael Ondaatje and Anthony Minghella.
The Bechdel test
Bechdel score
3 / 3
Passes
-
Yes
1. At least two women
8 women characters. 6 of them speak. -
Yes
2. Who talk to each other
In 3 scenes out of 125. -
Yes
3. About something besides a man
In those scenes, our script parser found no man named. See the scene.
Second opinion
Agree bechdeltest.com readers give it 3 out of 3.
The film
October 1944 in war torn Italy. Hana (Juliette Binoche), a French-Canadian nurse working in a mobile army medical unit, feels like everything she loves in life dies on her. Because of the difficulty traveling and the dangers, especially as the landscape is still heavily booby-trapped with mines, Hana volunteers to stay behind at a church to care solely for a dying semi-amnesiac patient, who is badly burned and disfigured. She agrees to catch up to the rest of the unit after he dies. All the patient remembers is that he is English, and that he is married. Their solitude is disrupted with the arrival at the church of fellow Canadian David Caravaggio (Willem Dafoe), part of the Intelligence Service, who is certain that he knows the patient as a man who cooperated with the Germans. Caravaggio believes that the patient's memory is largely intact, and that he is running away from his past, in part, or in its entirety. The patient does open up about his past, all surrounding his work as a cartographer in North Africa, which was interrupted by the war. He may not be running from his work as a spy for the Germans as Caravaggio believes, but rather the memory of an affair he had with married Katharine Clifton (Kristin Scott Thomas), the love of his life, and the memory of a promise not totally fulfilled. Hana may also test her theory of her fates with love and death as she embarks on a relationship of her own with Kip Singh (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh from India, whose unit has camped on the now overgrown lawn of the church. Their work entails sweeping for and defusing mines, the discovery of one such mine which had earlier saved her life.
- Released
- 06 Dec 1996
- Genres
- Drama, Romance, War
- Rated
- R
- IMDb
- 7.4 / 10
- Metascore
- 86 / 100
- Awards
- Won 9 Oscars. 62 wins & 78 nominations total
- Elsewhere
- View on IMDb
Starring, by lines spoken
- Women
- Men
- Not in the cast list
- Bigger name, more lines
- Hana 157 lines, woman
- Katharine 131 lines, woman
- The Patient 100 lines, man
- Caravaggio 78 lines, man
- Kip 57 lines, man
- Madox 51 lines, man
- Clifton 43 lines
- Hardy 17 lines, man
- Fenelon-Barnes 14 lines, man
- Officer 14 lines
Full cast, 40 people
- Ralph Fiennes as Almásy
- Juliette Binoche as Hana
- Willem Dafoe as David Caravaggio
- Kristin Scott Thomas as Katharine Clifton
- Naveen Andrews as Sikh Kip
- Colin Firth as Geoffrey Clifton
- Julian Wadham as Madox
- Torri Higginson as Mary
- Jürgen Prochnow as Major Muller
- Kevin Whately as Sgt. Hardy
- Clive Merrison as Fenelon-Barnes
- Nino Castelnuovo as D'Agostino
- Hichem Rostom as Fouad
- Peter Rühring as Bermann
- Geordie Johnson as Oliver
- Liisa Repo-Martell as Jan
- Raymond Coulthard as Rupert Douglas
- Philip Whitchurch as Corporal Dade
- Jason Done as Kiss Me Soldier
- Roger Morlidge as Sergeant - Desert Train
- Simon Sherlock as Private - Desert Train
- Sebastian Schipper as Interrogation Room Soldier
- Fritz Eggert as Interrogation Room Soldier
- Sonia Mankaï as Arab Nurse
- Rim Turkhi as Aicha
- Sebastian Rudolph as Officer In Square
- Thoraya Sehill as Interpreter In Square
- Sondos Belhassen as Woman with Baby In Square
- Gregor Truter as Corporal - El Taj
- Salah Miled as Bedouin Doctor
- Abdellatif Hamrouni as Ancient Arab
- Samy Azaiez as Kamal
- Habib Chetoui as Al Auf
- Philippa Day as Officer's Wife
- Amanda Walker as Lady Hampton
- Paul Kant as Sir Ronald Hampton
- Matthew Ferguson as Young Canadian Soldier
- Anthony Smee as Beach Interrogation Officer
- Lee Ross as Spalding
- Dominic Mafham as Officer - El Taj
Who talks, scene by scene
Lines of dialogue in every 3 scenes, start to finish. Women above the line, men below. 11% of lines come from characters we couldn't match to the cast list and aren't shown.
Women
Men
Scene 1 Scene 125
Hover, tap or tab to a bar to see those scenes: where they happen and who's talking.
Show the numbers
| Scenes | Women's lines | Men's lines |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 | 0 | 0 |
| 4 to 6 | 7 | 0 |
| 7 to 9 | 5 | 4 |
| 10 to 12 | 9 | 12 |
| 13 to 15 | 3 | 13 |
| 16 to 18 | 4 | 6 |
| 19 to 21 | 0 | 4 |
| 22 to 24 | 11 | 14 |
| 25 to 27 | 7 | 10 |
| 28 to 30 | 9 | 5 |
| 31 to 33 | 11 | 13 |
| 34 to 36 | 11 | 8 |
| 37 to 39 | 34 | 37 |
| 40 to 42 | 2 | 7 |
| 43 to 45 | 6 | 0 |
| 46 to 48 | 3 | 0 |
| 49 to 51 | 11 | 3 |
| 52 to 54 | 17 | 1 |
| 55 to 57 | 15 | 17 |
| 58 to 60 | 19 | 8 |
| 61 to 63 | 10 | 13 |
| 64 to 66 | 6 | 1 |
| 67 to 69 | 2 | 0 |
| 70 to 72 | 13 | 18 |
| 73 to 75 | 5 | 24 |
| 76 to 78 | 18 | 21 |
| 79 to 81 | 2 | 2 |
| 82 to 84 | 2 | 20 |
| 85 to 87 | 7 | 5 |
| 88 to 90 | 6 | 8 |
| 91 to 93 | 0 | 2 |
| 94 to 96 | 2 | 16 |
| 97 to 99 | 3 | 12 |
| 100 to 102 | 10 | 28 |
| 103 to 105 | 12 | 1 |
| 106 to 108 | 0 | 2 |
| 109 to 111 | 0 | 1 |
| 112 to 114 | 5 | 24 |
| 115 to 117 | 7 | 6 |
| 118 to 120 | 3 | 2 |
| 121 to 123 | 6 | 3 |
| 124 to 125 | 1 | 0 |
The evidence
- Straight from the script
- Counted from the script and the credits
Tap an exhibit to open it.
Exhibit A: the passing scenes
The scene our parser counted as passing, word for word.
HANA: (good-naturedly waving MARY: Don't ask.
MARY: Okay, Type Os, the vampires wait. Everybody's giving a pint. JAN: Ugh! If they were sucking it out I wouldn't mind. It's the needle I can't stand. HANA: You're a nurse - how ca you be frightened of needles!
LADY HAMPTON: You should sit down, darling. She's quite all right. Are you pregnant? KATHARINE: I don't think so. LADY HAMPTON: How romantic. With Fiona I fell over every five minutes. Ronnie Christened me Lady Downfall. KATHARINE: I think I might go inside and sit down for a few minutes.
Exhibit B: every 100 lines
Out of every 100 lines with a known speaker, 45 are women's.
304 lines from women, 371 from men.
- Women
- Men
Exhibit C: who's in it
8 women and 25 men in the cast. 6 women and 16 men from it get lines.
Characters
With lines
- Women
- Men
Exhibit D: who gets heard
A woman speaks the first line.
The longest stretch with no woman speaking runs 27 lines.
Every line of dialogue, first to last
- First line by a woman
- Longest stretch with no woman speaking
Words spoken
Women speak 41% of the words (3,184), men 59% (4,518). Women have 45% of the lines, so their lines run shorter than men's.
Exhibit E: the test the other way
Two named men talk to each other about something besides a woman. It passes the reverse test.
Conversations between two named characters
Two women
9
Two men
29
Exhibit F: behind the camera
2 of the 11 people in these jobs are women.
Across the whole crew, 19% of the people whose gender is listed are women.
- Directed by
- Anthony Minghella (man)
- Written by
- Anthony Minghella (man)
- From the novel by
- Michael Ondaatje (man)
- Produced by
- Saul Zaentz (man)
- Shot by
- John Seale (man)
- Edited by
- Walter Murch (man)
- Music by
- Gabriel Yared (man)
- Production design by
- Stuart Craig (man)
- Costumes by
- Ann Roth (woman)
- Cast by
- Michelle Guish (woman), David Rubin (man)
The crew, department by department
-
Sound
3 women, 14 men
-
Art
3 women, 9 men, 1 not listed
-
Production
1 women, 8 men, 3 not listed
-
Costume & Make-Up
1 women, 3 men, 3 not listed
-
Camera
0 women, 3 men, 1 not listed
-
Directing
2 women, 2 men
-
Editing
0 women, 3 men
-
Lighting
0 women, 1 men, 2 not listed
- Women
- Men
- Gender not listed on TMDB
Exhibit G: how old the stars were
Women: 31 on average. Men: 39 on average.
The top-billed cast, at the film's release.
Women
Torri Higginson 26, Juliette Binoche 32, Kristin Scott Thomas 36
Men
Naveen Andrews 27, Ralph Fiennes 33, Colin Firth 36, Julian Wadham 38, Willem Dafoe 41, Kevin Whately 45, Jürgen Prochnow 55
Exhibit H: the money
It made 8.6 times what it cost.
- Budget
- $27 million
- Box office
- $232 million
From TMDB, not adjusted for inflation.
About this analysis
Our parser read the script: 125 scenes and 761 lines of dialogue. The bechdeltest.com rating comes from that site’s readers. How the test works
