A student at Oxford in the 1920s becomes fascinated with the glamorous lives of an aristocratic friend and his sister, but a complex love triangle develops between the three, while their idyllic relationship is threatened by the arrival of the siblings' embittered mother. Drama based on Evelyn Waugh's novel, starring Matthew Goode, Ben Whishaw, Hayley Atwell and Emma Thompson.

Befriended by aristocrat Sebastian Flyte, Oxford student Charles Ryder finds that the power and privilege experienced by the family is seductive. On a visit to the ancestral home, Brideshead, he falls in love with his friend's sister, Julia. However, as his ties to the Flytes deepen, Ryder finds himself at odds with their strong Roman Catholicism.