First Film Was Minghella's Finest Work

He might be known for his sweep of the 1996 Academy Awards with The English Patient, but director Anthony Minghella should be remembered for his first film, Dana Stevens writes in Slate. Truly, Madly, Deeply, a 1990 made-for-TV movie that's now something of a cult classic, is a "psychologically accurate portrait of grief" that still manages to be funny and "madly romantic."

The story, about a mourning pianist whose lover returns as a ghost, does more than inspire a "debilitating, lifelong crush on Alan Rickman." It makes my "semisecret list of all-time favorite movies," Stevens writes. Not "formally innovative or visually impressive or thematically original," it can yet "reduce anyone who's ever loved and lost—or even just loved—to a quivering jelly." (More Anthony Minghella stories.)