The English Patient

Continuity mistake: After Almasy comes out from the desert, he goes to the British soldiers. They offer him a half glass of water. As they hand him the water, there is a scene change, but the water now is a full glass.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Willem Dafoe is conversing with another male British agent as the German paratroopers invade, a British female worker passes him as he is about to go down the flight of stairs. As he reaches the ground floor, she passes by him again as she goes up the same stairs he just came down - seemingly far too quick to be possible.

Continuity mistake: In the scene where Almacy is trying to dig out the workers from the car in the sand dune, the camera switches back and forth between Almacy and Katherine as they talk. Each time the camera shows Almacy, the long white scarf around his neck is wrapped or dangling in a different way, and missing entirely at the end, as if they were tired of messing with it.

Continuity mistake: In the airplane crash scene, the stunt plane's fuselage appears to be seriously damaged. But when Fiennes runs up to the airplane to pull out the Cliftons, the fuselage looks relatively undamaged.

Continuity mistake: In the desert, early in the morning, Catherine's husband is heading for his plane, but Almasy wants to talk to him. Between them, on the ground, is a box, but from the other shot, the box is gone.

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Factual error: After Hardy dies and they're going through his possessions, a football scarf is pulled from his kit bag. The scarf has a Sunderland AFC badge. The film is set in World War II. The badge on the scarf was introduced in the 1970s.

More mistakes in The English Patient

Hana: There's a man downstairs. He brought us eggs. He might stay.
Almásy: Why? Can he lay eggs?
Hana: He's Canadian.
Almásy: Why are people always so happy when they collide with someone from the same place? What happened in Montreal when you passed a man in the street? Did you invite him to live with you?

More quotes from The English Patient

Trivia: This is not made entirely clear in the movie but in the book it is nearly seven years before the Count returns to the cave for Katherine's body.

Tallicame

More trivia for The English Patient

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