'Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale' Closes the Crawley Era with Class

Downton Abbey and its fans have had a good run. Since the series debuted on PBS Masterpiece in 2011, there have been six seasons and two feature films' worth of Crawley family intrigues, affairs, deaths, and everyday existence to sate the most ardent of Anglophiles. However, the passing in 2024 of Dame Maggie Smith — who embodied the irreplaceably droll Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham to perfection — unofficially underlined that, for many, the franchise could never be the same. As the Dowager Duchess goes, so too does the final generation of 19th-century aristocratic peerage.

Smartly, creator Julian Fellowes understood that too and is closing out this familial era of the Earl of Grantham peerage in style with a third and final feature film, Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.

However long you’ve remained on the Downton train*, Fellowes and returning feature film director Simon Curtis (who took over from series director Michael Engler starting with the second film, Downton Abbey: A New Era) have gifted audiences with a trilogy closer that’s worth coming back for as it brings satisfying closure to world and hits about every emotional note a fan could hope for in seeing these characters off to their imagined futures.