The death of Anthony Minghella has deprived the British film industry of one of its few quality hitters. The 54-year-old writer and director was a genuine arbiter of thinking cinema, and exceptionally modest to boot. He came to film relatively late by making that treacherous migration from stage to screen. Any doubts about his ability with a camera were confounded by his first major feature, Truly Madly Deeply (1990), a haunting comedy about grief and ghosts that I found impossibly moving.

Alan Rickman plays a cello-playing husband who comes back from the dead to comfort his grieving wife (Juliette Stephenson). It’s an exquisitely understated piece of Hampstead magic realism that alerted critics to the arrival of an exceptional talent and distinctive new voice. Mighella’s feel for characters and performances has been the distinguishing hallmark of his career. With his theatrical background, he was a director whom actors trusted implicitly.

Awards followed rapidly. None perhaps more unexpected than the heap of Oscars he won for The English Patient (1996) starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche. This brilliant adaptation of Michael Ondaatje’s impregnable novel, and the sumptuous beauty of the film, put him firmly on the Hollywood map. The Talented Mr Ripley (1999) with Matt Damon, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett was an even better film if not so richly rewarded. It became clear just how good Minghella was at directing actresses. Blessed with a sense of humour – if not much hair – he was a soft-spoken inspiration who teased rather than bullied the best out of his casts.

Jude Law, I feel, will be suffer more than most at the loss of Minghella. The director gave the actor some of his most memorable roles, notably Dickie Greenleaf in Ripley, and his first significant lead in Cold Mountain opposite Nicole Kidman. Law told me what a profound inspiration Minghella was to work with, and how instrumental he had been in elevating Law to the A list. Their last big film together, Breaking and Entering (2006), was not the money-spinner many were expecting. But it was never intended to be. This subtle drama about the affair between an architect (Law) and an illegal immigrant (Juliette Binoche, another of Minghella’s muses) took Minghella back to the kind of London drama he started with in Truly Madly Deeply. Indeed, there is an unspoken critique of how the gentrification of London has changed the face of the city and its shifting populace.

Minghella’s CV might look modest in terms of directing credits. He was no Woody Allen. But his films had a tremendous impact on British cinema. He was just as influential as a producer on projects as various as Richard Eyre’s drama Iris (2001) – about the withering effect Alzheimer’s disease had on Iris Murdoch’s life – and the recent George Clooney thriller, Michael Clayton (2007). He championed British art house films just as passionately as he chaired the British Film Institute. His loss will be keenly felt by everyone who loves film.

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