The Remains of the Day is a 1993 drama film adapted from the Booker Prize-winning 1988 novel of the same name by Kazuo Ishiguro. The film was directed by James Ivory, produced by Ismail Merchant, Mike Nichols, and John Calley and adapted by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. It stars Anthony Hopkins as James Stevens and Emma Thompson as Miss Kenton, with James Fox, Christopher Reeve, Hugh Grant, Ben Chaplin, and Lena Headey in supporting roles. The film was a critical and box office success and it was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Hopkins), Best Actress (Thompson) and Best Adapted Screenplay (Jhabvala). In 1999, the British Film Institute ranked The Remains of the Day the 64th-greatest British film of the 20th century. Plot In 1958 postwar Britain, Stevens, the butler of Darlington Hall, receives a letter from the former housekeeper, Miss Kenton. Their past employer, the Earl of Darlington, has died a broken man, his reputation destroyed by his prewar support of Germany, and his stately country house has been sold to retired US Congressman Jack Lewis. Allowed to borrow the Daimler, Stevens sets off for the West Country to see Miss Kenton for the first time in decades. A flashback to the 1930s shows Kenton's arrival at Darlington Hall, where the ever-efficient but deeply repressed Stevens derives his entire identity from his profession. He butts heads with the warmer, strong-willed Kenton, particularly when Stevens refuses to acknowledge that his aging father, now an under-butler, is no longer able to perform his duties. Displaying total professionalism, Stevens carries on as his father lies dying during Darlington's conference of like-minded, fascist-sympathising British and European aristocrats. Also in attendance is Congressman Lewis, who admonishes the "gentleman politicians" as meddling amateurs, advising that "Europe has become the arena of Realpolitik" and warning of impending disaster. Later, Stevens is unable to answer an aristocratic guest's questions on global trade and politics, which the man claims to demonstrate the lower classes' ignorance and inability to govern themselves. Exposed to Nazi racial laws, Darlington has Stevens dismiss two newly appointed, refugee German-Jewish maids, despite his protest. Kenton threatens to resign, but has nowhere to go, while a regretful Darlington is later unable to rehire the maids. Relations thaw between Stevens and Kenton, and she clearly shows her feelings for him, but the outwardly detached Stevens remains dedicated solely to his role as butler.