Gosford Park

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Gosford Park abounds in scenes to savor. It's a feast, and one of Altman's best.

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.

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.

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.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Never has a film taken such relish in between-the-wars malice as Gosford Park.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's a scintillating comedy-drama and one of Altman's most richly moving and entertaining pictures.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

There are even more characters of interest here than in "Nashville."

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

So deliciously absorbing and well done.

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.

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.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It's a very funny movie in that sniffy Brit way.

Newsweek David Ansen

A fine, well-groomed entertainment, but the road it takes has already been well paved.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

As with Altman's best movies, Gosford Park is above all an entrancing hum of atmosphere and texture.

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.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

It isn't about where you get, but how you get there -- and the getting there is a chewy delight.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Qualifies as a solid double, maybe a triple.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

At its best it is one of the most dynamic movies from a most dynamic filmmaker, now 76.

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

A British costume film that's funny but not at all fusty.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Such a glorious cast, deployed to such trivial effect!

Time Richard Schickel

Tedium overwhelms caring well before this endless film finally concludes.