Cold Mountain (North Carolina) settlement on the real-life mountain. The peak is accessible only by hiking a spur of the strenuous Art Loeb Trail. A major motion picture based on the novel was distributed by Miramax Films in 2003. The movie was actually filmed in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania. A Miramax Films spokesperson cited higher production costs however director Anthony Minghella had said that the lack of old-growth forests and period buildings as well as the lack of dependable snowfall were the primary reasons he chose not to film in Western North Carolina. A 2015 opera production followed. "Cold Mountain Hunter" a 2004
Ripley's Game (film) rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 24 reviews. Roger Ebert added "Ripley's Game" to his "Great Movies" list, calling it "the best of the four" Ripley films he had seen ("Purple Noon", "The American Friend", "The Talented Mr. Ripley", "Ripley's Game") and Malkovich "precisely the Tom Ripley I imagine when I read the novels," praising what he felt to be "one of [his] most brilliant and insidious performances." Ebert criticized the decision not to release the film theatrically in North America, writing: "The failure to open it theatrically was a shameful blunder." Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" gave the film