In the final days of World War II, a critically burned man with an unknown identity is tended to by a compassionate nurse named Hana in an abandoned Italian monastery. The patient, known only as "the English patient" due to his accent and inability to recall details, begins to recount fragmented memories of his pre-war life through a series of flashbacks. These memories unveil his true identity as Count László de Almásy, a Hungarian cartographer involved in a doomed love affair with a married woman named Katharine Clifton while on a desert expedition in North Africa. As Almásy's story unfolds, Hana and others around her, including a Sikh sapper named Kip and a Canadian thief named Caravaggio, are drawn into his haunting tale of romance, betrayal, and tragedy.

Simultaneously, Hana grapples with her own personal losses and the horrors of war. Kip, who defuses bombs left over from the conflict, starts a tender romance with Hana, serving as a brief respite from the destruction around them. Caravaggio, harboring suspicions from his past interactions with Almásy, seeks answers and justice. As their intertwined stories unravel within the confines of the ruined villa, themes of identity, memory, and the devastating long-term impact of war are explored, set against the backdrop of a war-torn landscape, leading them to confront their own secrets and moral dilemmas.