Before there was Downton Abbey, there was Gosford Park. In November 1932, a phalanx of moneyed guests arrives for a weekend shooting party at the estate of Sir William McCordle and Lady Sylvia. Mary, a fresh-faced, naïve new maid accompanies the sniping Countess of Trentham, and is shown the ropes by the house’s worldly head housemaid, Elsie. While the masters engage in various financial and sexual intrigues upstairs, the world downstairs has its own curiosities–namely, the predatory valet to a Hollywood producer, Henry Denton, and the mysterious, cagey servant, Robert Parks. Mary soon discovers that the image of servants living vicariously through their masters is a false one, and that the upstairs-downstairs worlds are often shockingly interwoven.  Starring Maggie Smith, Kristin Scott Thomas.  Directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes, Robert Altman and Bob Balaban. (2001)