Anthony Minghella Jude Law, at Western Gardens, Ryde, Isle of Wight. Anthony Minghella Anthony Minghella, (6 January 195418 March 2008) was a British film director, playwright and screenwriter. He was chairman of the board of Governors at the British Film Institute between 2003 and 2007. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for "The English Patient" (1996). In addition, he received three more Academy Award nominations; he was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay for both "The English Patient" (1996) and "The Talented Mr. Ripley" (1999), and was posthumously nominated for Best Picture for "The Reader" (2008), as a co-producer. Minghella was
Tom Ripley 1960 adaptation of "The Talented Mr. Ripley", film critic Roger Ebert described Ripley as "a committed hedonist, devoted to great comfort, understated taste and civilized interests. He has wonderful relationships with women, who never fully understand who or what he is. He has friendships -- real ones -- with many of his victims. His crimes are like moves in a chess game; he understands that as much as he may like and respect his opponents, he must end with a checkmate." While Highsmith never explicitly portrays Ripley as gay or bisexual, certain passages in the Ripley novels imply that he