Set in 1928, following the wedding of Lord Robert Crawley (Hugh Bonneville) son-law Tom Branson (Allen Leech) to Lucy Smith (Tuppence Middleton), film company British Lion sends a request to Downton Abbey asking to produce a film using Downton as the location. While Lord Grantham is not keen on the idea, Lord Grantham's eldest daughter and agent of the estate Lady Mary Talbot (Michelle Dockery) convinces Robert to approve the idea due to Downton's roof being in dire need of repair. As Downton reluctantly welcomes the film production to the estate with some members of the household staff excited while others repulsed, a discovery comes to light that Lord Grantham's mother, Dowager Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith) is the owner of a villa in the south of France that was willed to her by a late acquaintance of hers Marquis de Montmirai which has continued to be used by his surviving wife and son. As the Crawley's, except for Mary, head to the villa at the request of the current Marquis, Robert soon finds reason to question his legacy and lineage.

Following the release of the first Downton Abbey film in 2019 wherein the $20 million production grossed $200 million worldwide, creator Julian Fellowes sated he and the cast had ideas for further continuation. After Fellowes finished working on The Gilda Age, Fellowes wrote the script in 2020 and following various work arounds for COVD protocols in 2021 the film began production. Released in 2022, the film didn't deliver the same numbers as its predecessor making $90 million against a $40 million budget, it was seen as a success overall due to the nature of the cinema landscape favoring blockbuster tentpoles while adult skewing material such as Downton went to streamers. As a film it's very much in line with the first Downton Movie where it's a chance to revisit the characters and world audiences fell in love with in the TV show.

As with the previous film, Downton Abbey: A New Era is a very busy film with many things going on in both major plotlines and individual character moments so once again it's pretty much like you're watching an episode of the TV series except on a theatrical budget. The two major plotlines are both very rich with the filming plotline playing as a clever culture clash with elements of Singing in the Rain as we see this silent melodrama filmed at Downton need to be retrofitted into a "talkie" due to the rising popularity of talkies in the wake of The Jazz Singer. The movie production crew colliding with the ordered world of Downton is somewhat similar to the royal staff rolling over the Downton Staff from the previous film, but there's enough differences that it doesn't feel like we're retreading ground. The secondary plotline involving Violet's inheritance of the French villa does stretch disbelief to an extent and does risk going into "soap opera" territory, but the writings strong enough that it avoids that pitfall.

If you enjoyed the TV series and the previous film, there's enough here to motivate longtime fans to indulge in a viewing. It's a very busy movie but it never feels overstuffed and most of the plot lines and revisits of characters hit instead of miss.

Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) was directed by Simon Curtis. Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay.

Almost all of the regulars from the TV series return in this movie, and they are as excellent as ever. Of course, Dame Maggie Smith stars in every scene in which she appears, but all the other regulars perform as well as they did on TV.

Unlike the 2019 movie, the plots are realistic, or at least within the realm of reason. Two main plots emerge in the first few minutes of the film. One is that a French nobleman has left the Dowager Countess (Smith) a beautiful villa in the south of France.

The other is that a film crew is going to use the abbey as the set of a major movie.

This is a must-see film for Downton Abbey fans. However, if you've never seen Downton Abbey, it probably won't work. (Too many back stories are omitted from the movie. The movie won't make sense if you don't know about them.)

The film has a solid IMDb rating of 7.4. I thought that it was better than that, and rated it 8.

Fans of the tv show and earlier film will get the most out of this, with plenty of dangling plot threads deftly picked up and woven into a satisfying series of resolutions.

There's plenty of strongly emotional moments here. It plays like one of the Christmas specials but more so, and combines an appropriately high stakes 19th century historical family mystery with an examination of an industry on the cusp of a revolution, as metaphor for Downton and the Crawleys doing their best to survive in a changing world. Hints are given how they will manage it.

This is not the place to start with Downton, and the movie assumes wise viewers know that. With so many characters, with so much history, the audience are given not so much introductions as little reminders.

As is traditional, Maggie Smith gets most of the best lines, but there are no weak performances. There's even a scattering of wisdom here and there among the drollery and drama.