The title compound, C(16)H(11)N(3)O(3), crystallizes with two independent mol-ecules which are almost identical to each other in the asymmetric unit. The dihedral angle between the quinoline ring system and the nitro-benzene ring is 51.04 (9)° in one of the mol-ecules and 48.91 (9)° in the other. The crystal packing is stabilized by C-H⋯O hydrogen bonds and π-π inter-actions, with a centroid-centroid distance of 3.6010 (15) Å.