Set during the period of growing influence of the Indian independence movement in the British Raj, the story begins with the arrival in India of a British woman, Miss Adela Quested, who is joining her fiancé, a city magistrate named Ronny Heaslop. She and Ronny's mother, Mrs. Moore, befriend an Indian doctor, Aziz H. Ahmed.

• EMI Films
• John Brabourne and Richard Goodwyn Productions
• Judy Davis
• Victor Banerjee
• Peggy Ashcroft
• James Fox
• Alec Guinness
• Nigel Havers
• Richard Wilson
• Antonia Pemberton