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However, his second film, Mr Wonderful (1993), was a sweet and relatively straightforward, low-budget American blue-collar romance, with Matt Dillon as the electrician who rediscovers romance with his former wife Annabella Sciorra.

Minghella returned to Italy for The Talented Mr Ripley, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel about an amoral conman, Tom Ripley. The film consolidated Minghella’s status.

Cold Mountain was another prestigious literary adaptation, from a novel by Charles Frazier. It was controversial from the outset. It was an American production, set around one of the most monumental events in American history, but to save money it was filmed largely in Romania — a decision that prompted considerable resentment in certain quarters.

Renée Zellweger won an Oscar for a rather broad performance as a country bumpkin that some believed might have been more appropriate to a comedy sketch, but the film got lukewarm reviews and struggled to recoup a hefty $85 million budget.

In 2003 Minghella took on the role of chairman of the British Film Institute. He complained that Britain needed more studios to make more films and retain British talent. Personally he seemed to turn his back on Hollywood as he sought to develop his career on this side of the Atlantic.

In 2005 he directed a party election broadcast for the Labour Party, which was criticised for insincerity for presenting Tony Blair and Gordon Brown as if they were a couple of star-struck lovers. He also directed an English National Opera production of Madam Butterfly, working on it with his wife, the Hong Kong-born choreographer Carolyn Choa. She had worked on several of his film and appeared in Truly Madly Deeply in a supporting role as the translator. He was also reportedly writing a libretto for a new opera for the Metropolitan Opera, New York.

Minghella’s next film, Breaking and Entering (2006), was highly contemporary, set in the London of political and economic refugees, but it was to prove a box-office flop. It was an original script. Jude Law played a rich architect who followed a young thief who has broken into his premises and then began a relationship with his mother, a Bosnian refugee (Juliette Binoche). At the very least it represented an attempt by Minghella to try to move his career on.

He was producer on several films, including Iris (2001), The Quiet American (2002) and Michael Clayton (2007).

His brother Dominic Minghella is a screen writer. The Anthony Minghella Theatre at Quay Arts Centre on the Isle of Wight was named in his honour. Minghella was an enthusiastic supporter of Portsmouth Football Club. He was appointed CBE in 2001.

Minghella is survived by his wife, Carolyn Choa, his daughter and their son, Max, an actor.

Anthony Minghella, CBE, scriptwriter and film director, was born on January 6, 1954. He died in hospital of post-operative complications on March 18, 2008, aged 54