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Gosford Park
Universal acclaim
Based on 34 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 104 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info
Genre(s): Mystery
Written by: Julian Fellowes
Directed by: Robert Altman
Release Date:
Theatrical: December 26, 2001
DVD: June 25, 2002
Running Time: 137 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / USA / Germany
Summary
RATING: R for some language and brief sexuality
Starring Kristin Scott Thomas, Julian Fellowes, Ryan Phillippe, Eileen Atkins, Michael Gambon, Jeremy Northam, Helen Mirren, and Clive Owen
This ensemble murder mystery satire, set in 1930's England, revolves around an elegant hunting party weekend at a country estate, featuring an aristocratic family and their friends.
Also On Metacritic
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Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
New York Post Jonathan Foreman
It ranks among Robert Altman's best work ever, and that its many satisfactions derive in large part from a superbly written screenplay by Julian Fellowes that has no equal this year.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Stephen Holden
A virtuoso ensemble piece to rival the director's "Nashville" and "Short Cuts" in its masterly interweaving of multiple characters and subplots.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Ella Taylor
At his best, Altman turns us into interlopers who have stumbled into a world that seems to predate us and persuades us it will continue to teem with life long after we leave the theater.
Read Full Review >The New Yorker David Denby
Altman achieves his dream of a truly organic form, in which everyone is connected to everyone else, and life circulates around a central group of ideas and emotions in bristling orbits. [14 Jan 2002, p. 92]
USA Today Mike Clark
The movie is so fun that it wouldn't need the mystery to be top-notch entertainment.
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
At a time when too many movies focus every scene on a $20 million star, an Altman film is like a party with no boring guests.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
The exhilaration is slow to build. It doesn't come from any one thing but from countless crosscurrents, tiny bits of color that fill out the portrait.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Gosford Park abounds in scenes to savor. It's a feast, and one of Altman's best.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
This territory is familiar if you remember the great BBC miniseries "Upstairs Downstairs," but Altman gives it a new twist with his restlessly roaming camera and incisively satirical approach. He's still near the peak of his powers.
Read Full Review >New York Magazine Peter Rainer
A love affair between performer and filmmaker. The director shows off his ardor by eliciting from his actors aspects of their gifts that they themselves may not have known they had.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
In the best Altman manner there are no real heroes and villains, only people trapped by their vanity and ambition and the straitjackets of classism.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
Never has a film taken such relish in between-the-wars malice as Gosford Park.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
It's a scintillating comedy-drama and one of Altman's most richly moving and entertaining pictures.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
The movie might almost be winking at the fact that any single one of these performers could easily be the featured star of his or her own upper-crust period piece.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Taking advantage of a splendid cast, a sharply focused script and the fresh English setting, "Gosford Park" emerges as one of the most satisfying of Robert Altman's numerous ensemble pictures.
Read Full Review >New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein
Altman's technique also allows his huge cast to act up a storm, in the best sense. Gosford Park has roughly half the best actors in England in it.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
Without hesitation, I hand the comic award to Smith. She plays a pinched guest known as Constance, Countess of Trentham, to such a hilarious tee, her tee runneth over.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
A wickedly astute and beautiful comedy of manners-cum-murder mystery, it's too dense, and occasionally confusing, to grasp fully the first time around. How lucky, then, that it's also too much fun to see just once.
Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
Isn't much more than marvelous entertainment -- but then, that's a lot right there.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
It's the style of the thing, not the plot, that is the attraction here, the great way the cast has with the snarky dialogue.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
There are even more characters of interest here than in "Nashville."
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
What a relief to see a movie in which an audience responds with peals of laughter to subtle facial shifts as well as punch lines.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jami Bernard
No matter which floor you're on, the huge cast is extraordinary, and Altman gives the actors free rein to bring their characters to life despite such close quarters.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
A fine, well-groomed entertainment, but the road it takes has already been well paved.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Dennis Lim
As with Altman's best movies, Gosford Park is above all an entrancing hum of atmosphere and texture.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Tim Merrill
We have an authentic Old Master working in our midst, and Gosford Park will at the very least remind everyone how masterful a helmsman Altman can be.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones
It isn't about where you get, but how you get there -- and the getting there is a chewy delight.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
At its best it is one of the most dynamic movies from a most dynamic filmmaker, now 76.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer
A British costume film that's funny but not at all fusty.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
Such a glorious cast, deployed to such trivial effect!
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
Tedium overwhelms caring well before this endless film finally concludes.
What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.1 (out of 10) based on 104 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Andrew S. gave it a10:
The people who dislike this film are just dumb. Not every movie is like a Will Ferrell comedy!!! Gosford Park is a smart film with intricate plots abound. It's pretty easy to understand if you are not stupid.
isil gave it a10:
Wonderful movie!
Keith M. gave it a10:
I wonder if we all watch the same movie when we sit in the dark together. A disingenuous statement, of course: our attitudes, expectations, distractions, taste, intelligence, knowledge, biases, and the state of our bladders after consuming pails of Coke all ensure we see something different. With Gosford Park I read of tedium, familiar territory, tiresomeness, boredom. What I saw in my several viewings was an embracing yet acerbic melange of genres polished to a single piece through a screenplay larded with wit, superb filming, and masterful performances. I think that as an indictment and acknowledgement of a period at its end and its denizens, it is as fine a movie as The Rules of the Game. Olympian.
Pam L. gave it a10:
A quick scroll through the user comments and you'll find there's little middle ground in assessing this film. Most people loved it or hated it. I'm in the "loved it" camp. I saw it in theaters and I own the DVD which I recently watched three times - once by itself and two more times listening to different commentaries. It is a beautifully filmed, wonderfully acted, witty satire about upper and lower class with delightful music as well. And while I enjoyed this in theaters, I also like watching on DVD so I can turn on the captions -- that way I can catch all of the dialogue that goes on in this film which is made in a way that the viewer seems to be eavesdropping on household happenings.
Linda D. gave it a10:
Wonderfully sly, subtle and rich, this movie is a miracle and destined to be considered a classic wherever there are people who would rather not be led by the hand through a storyline. Those who come to the closing credits wondering what it was all about are many. Those who watch it over and over to catch just one more little bit that adds to their understanding of the plot are just as many. Yet, this is not a movie that encourages viewers to make up their own interpretation, but rather, hides all the answers in plain sight in a delightful puzzle. Perhaps Altman's use of multiple small stories woven together, yet told simultaneously, has put many people off. They are certainly difficult to follow at first. But the construct is elegant and well-worth a second look for anyone interested in movie-making of the highest caliber.
Greg A. gave it an8:
What grabbed about this film was the fly on the wall approach in a 1930's setting. I was transported back in time and was able to suspend all disbelief. This was wonderful. I particular liked the drawing room scene in which everyone was talking at the same time - so real! After about 45 minutes of letting myself mentally wonder about in the 1930's, I realised there was a plot line. To be frank, this wasn't that hot and if people watched it for the mystery it wouldn't score that highly.
Justin M. gave it a2:
This film is a period drama billed as a murder mystery. The murder event is almost incidental to the rest of the film. The plot is, as stated by others, difficult to follow thanks to Altman's wandering camera and microphone and the characters' thick accents. There were memorable performances, by Maggie Smith in particular, but this film has very limited appeal for the average moviegoer.
