Gosford Park

Gosford Park (2001) is Robert Altman's razor-sharp country house murder mystery — watch it online on iFILM. November 1932: the English aristocracy descends on Sir William McCordle's estate for a hunting weekend. Fine silver on the table, old grudges below the surface. By morning, the host is dead.

Altman runs two films at once. Upstairs, the gentry manage their lies, their inheritance scheming, and their very polite hatred of each other. Downstairs, the servants — who know everything — have their own hierarchy and their own wounds. Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Helen Mirren, Clive Owen, Kristin Scott Thomas, Ryan Phillippe, Jeremy Northam, and Stephen Fry share the frame in an ensemble of twenty, each a credible suspect. There are, technically, two killers. Working out who — and why both — takes the whole film.

Julian Fellowes won the Academy Award for Original Screenplay in 2002. He later built Downton Abbey on the same foundations. Stream Gosford Park (2001) in full on iFILM.