Metrograph

Altman’s whodunit, set over a weekend of outdoor sport and lavish dinners at a c. 1932 English country estate, features a peerless ensemble cast (Helen Mirren, Alan Bates, Maggie Smith, and many, many more) coming together to portray the upstairs-downstairs array of guests and servants in an arthouse hit that evokes the spirits of both Agatha Christie’s manor house mysteries and Jean Renoir’s The Rules of the Game. The sharp, acid screenplay comes courtesy Julian Fellowes, who would continue to dissect the English class system in Downtown Abbey.

Distributor: Universal