The title compound, (I) C(28)H(24)N(4)O(4), is the trans diastereo-isomer of the compound 1-[2-(4-nitro-phen-yl)-6-(5-phenyl-3-isoxazol-yl)-1,2,3,4-tetra-hydro-4-quinolin-yl]-2-pyrrolidinone monohydrate, (II) [Gutierrez et al. (2011 ▶). Acta Cryst. E67, o175-o176]. The most obvious differences between the diastereo-isomers are the dihedral angles between the isoxazole ring and the benzene and phenyl rings [47.0 (2); 56.4 (2) and 33.3 (2); 11.0 (2)°, respectively, for (II) 75.4 (2) and 5.8 (3), respectively, for (I)]. In the crystal of (I), the mol-ecules are linked by N-H⋯O inter-actions into a chain along [001] with graph-set notation C(8).