Career
His best-known films include Hackers and K-PAX. A stage adaptation of Softley"s film Backbeat was performed at the Duke of York"s Theatre, London (17 September – 24 March 2011), co-written with Stephen Jeffreys, musical direction by Paul Stacey, and directed by David Leveaux. In 2015, the British Broadcasting Corporation broadcast a two-part adaptation of author Sadie Jones’ novel The Outcast which Softley had directed. In The Guardian, Julia Raeside was impressed, writing: "The tone set by Iain Softley’s beautifully restrained direction and the careful use of music creates a real feeling of loss from the start, just as in the book, but he somehow avoids all hammy visual foreshadowing and narrative signposting, so often used to gee a plot along".
By contrast, Terry Ramsey, reviewing the first episode in The Daily Telegraph, found himself "sternly unmoved" by its "relentlessly emotional, heart-tugging story of tragedy, its gushing orchestral music and its soft-focus shots of people with quivering lower lips and moistening eyes".