Gosford Park. 2001. USA. Directed by Robert Altman. 137 min.
Screenplay by Julian Fellowes. With Michael Gambon, Maggie Smith, Helen Mirren, Kristen Scott Thomas, Ryan Phillippe, Clive Owen. The master of the house invites distinguished guests for a weekend shooting party—and is murdered in the dark of night. This English-manor whodunit, Altman’s most successful film since MASH, boasts a knockout cast of British stage and screen talent. Julian Fellowes’s cleverly layered script—pitting the babble of the landed against the gossip of the servants’ quarters—won an Academy Award and served as a model for Fellowes’s successful series Downton Abbey (2010–).