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Amadeus

  • 1984
  • PG
  • 2h 40m
IMDb RATING
8.4/10
448K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
679
58
Amadeus (1984)
Trailer for Amadeus
Play trailer2:20
3 Videos
99+ Photos
Costume DramaEpicPeriod DramaTragedyBiographyDramaMusic

The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him... Read allThe life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.The life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.

  • Director
    • Milos Forman
  • Writers
    • Peter Shaffer
    • Zdenek Mahler
  • Stars
    • F. Murray Abraham
    • Tom Hulce
    • Elizabeth Berridge
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    8.4/10
    448K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    679
    58
    • Director
      • Milos Forman
    • Writers
      • Peter Shaffer
      • Zdenek Mahler
    • Stars
      • F. Murray Abraham
      • Tom Hulce
      • Elizabeth Berridge
    • 794User reviews
    • 121Critic reviews
    • 87Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Top rated movie #73
    • Won 8 Oscars
      • 43 wins & 15 nominations total

    Videos3

    Amadeus
    Trailer 2:20
    Amadeus
    Amadeus
    Trailer 2:25
    Amadeus
    Amadeus
    Trailer 2:25
    Amadeus
    Amadeus
    Trailer 2:20
    Amadeus

    Photos130

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    + 124
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    Top cast99+

    Edit
    F. Murray Abraham
    F. Murray Abraham
    • Antonio Salieri
    Tom Hulce
    Tom Hulce
    • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
    Elizabeth Berridge
    Elizabeth Berridge
    • Constanze Mozart
    Roy Dotrice
    Roy Dotrice
    • Leopold Mozart
    Simon Callow
    Simon Callow
    • Emanuel Schikaneder
    Christine Ebersole
    Christine Ebersole
    • Katerina Cavalieri
    Jeffrey Jones
    Jeffrey Jones
    • Emperor Joseph II
    Charles Kay
    Charles Kay
    • Count Orsini-Rosenberg
    Kenneth McMillan
    Kenneth McMillan
    • Michael Schlumberg (2002 Director's Cut)
    Kenny Baker
    Kenny Baker
    • Parody Commendatore
    Lisbeth Bartlett
    • Papagena
    • (as Lisabeth Bartlett)
    Barbara Bryne
    • Frau Weber
    Martin Cavina
    • Young Salieri
    • (as Martin Cavani)
    Roderick Cook
    • Count Von Strack
    Milan Demjanenko
    • Karl Mozart
    Peter DiGesu
    • Francesco Salieri
    Richard Frank
    • Father Vogler
    Patrick Hines
    • Kappelmeister Bonno
    • Director
      • Milos Forman
    • Writers
      • Peter Shaffer
      • Zdenek Mahler
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews794

    8.4448.4K
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    Summary

    Reviewers say 'Amadeus' is celebrated for its exploration of genius and jealousy, featuring standout performances by Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham. The film's lavish production, period costumes, and use of Mozart's music are widely praised. However, it faces criticism for historical inaccuracies and fictionalized portrayals. Some find the film overly long and criticize certain performances. Despite these issues, 'Amadeus' is often regarded as a timeless classic for its blend of drama, music, and historical intrigue.
    AI-generated from the text of user reviews

    Featured reviews

    10mario_filipe

    A movie of a genius, directed by another one !

    I thought that it would be impossible to make a movie like this one! Peter Schaffer's original play inspired Milos Forman, the great czech film maker, that surprised the world with "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" (1975). The sublime, almost over-human performance by Frank Murray Abraham (the Mozart enemy and secret admirer, Salieri) is one of the keys for the movie success, mostly to it's depth. The perfect sense of timing by Milos Forman is admirable, he knows when to play wich music. All the scenarios: opera houses, palaces, streets, etc., are details absolutely harmonious! One of this classic secret was that Forman gathered "the" team, perfect team work.

    We can just admire it, laugh, cry, reflect, most of all, listen to it. See it, it's 10/10.

    Thank you Mr. Forman...
    AngieMargie

    Amadeus

    When the two worlds of Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart collide in Milos Forman's Amadeus, it is anything but a symphony. As the court composer of the Emperor of Austria, all Salieri desires are fame and recognition as a composer; it is all he had wanted his whole life. When he learns that Mozart, whose name he had known as long as he can remember, is going to come to the court to play, Salieri cannot wait to meet the outstanding and righteous man that he knows he must be. However, when Salieri learns that Mozart is a young, crude, and unrefined young man, endowed with all the talent and ability that he ever wanted and strived for, it plants a seed of jealousy that soon grows into bitter resentment and hatred, not only for Mozart, but also towards God. Salieri's desire to get rid of him is seemingly boundless as he plots and schemes for Mozart's demise. It is no wonder why Amadeus won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, with 5-Star performances by F. Murry Abraham as Antonio Salieri and Tom Hulce as Mozart. Amadeus is an emotionally charged and tragic piece, a story of the life of one of the world's most famous composers, as seen through the eyes of his worst enemy.
    10JamesHitchcock

    The Patron Saint of Mediocrities

    Most films about composers- Ken Russell's "The Music Lovers" about Tchaikovsky and "Immortal Beloved" about Beethoven are examples- rely upon the cliché of the creative artist as tortured, neurotic genius. Perhaps we like to console ourselves for the fact that we are not ourselves geniuses with the thought that genius must be paid for in mental suffering. Of course, not all composers fit this stereotype- Haydn was stoical in the face of misfortune (including a miserably unhappy marriage), Rossini was a noted bon viveur and it was often said of Felix Mendelssohn that his forename (Latin for "happy") well suited his character. But when did you last see a biopic of Haydn, Rossini or Mendelssohn? "Song of Norway" told the story of Grieg, another composer who doesn't really fit the "tormented genius" label, but it bombed at the box-office.

    "Amadeus", however, attempts to overturn this cliché with a vengeance. The Mozart portrayed in the early scenes is about the least tormented genius who ever lived, obnoxiously hearty and cheerful, without the slightest doubt about his own talents. The tormented character is his rival, Antonio Salieri, but Salieri is no genius; in his own mind he is a hopeless mediocrity whose talents pale into insignificance besides Mozart's.

    The story is told as a confession made by the now elderly, half- mad Salieri to a priest in 1823, long after Mozart's death, the earlier scenes being seen in flashback. As a young man, the deeply pious Salieri vows that if God will make him a great composer he will live a chaste, virtuous life and use his talents to God's glory. At first Salieri believes that his vow has been accepted. He quickly achieves fame and is appointed Court Composer to Emperor Joseph II. When Mozart arrives in Vienna, however, Salieri realises that the young man's music has a transcendent beauty which his own can never match.

    Salieri's attitude towards his rival is not one of simple jealousy. Were Mozart a man of his own austere, puritanical stamp Salieri would not resent him nearly so much. Mozart, however, is very far from being puritanical. He is not a bad man, but he is very young, and his are a young man's faults- brashness, overweening self-confidence, a bawdy sense of humour, a keen eye for a pretty girl and a lack of respect for authority. (Actually, those last two are not really faults at all). His most irritating characteristic is his high-pitched laugh like a braying jackass. In Salieri's eyes, however, Mozart is a vulgar upstart, a smutty, sex-obsessed boy. Salieri believes that God has cheated him, by denying him the musical talent he deserves and giving it to an unworthy recipient. (The title is an appropriate one; Amadeus was not only Mozart's middle name but is also Latin for "beloved of God"). Salieri therefore plots a diabolical revenge against both Mozart and God.

    The director Miloš Forman took the brave decision to cast little-known actors in the three main roles, F. Murray Abraham as Salieri, Tom Hulce as Mozart and Elizabeth Berridge as Mozart's beautiful young wife Constanze. In each case, however, that decision paid off admirably. Constanze has sometimes had a bad press from biographers, but here Berridge portrays her as strong-willed but loving and kind-hearted.

    Both Abraham and Hulce were nominated for "Best Actor" Oscars, and it was Abraham who won. Good as Abraham is as the gloomy, saturnine Salieri, a man eaten up with obsessive hatred, I still think that Hulce should have beaten him. There is a remarkable contrast between the brash young jackass of the early scenes and the Mozart of the later ones- a more mature, serious family man who has learnt the meaning of responsibility and who is for the first time starting to experience worries- about his finances, about his health, about his career. Hulce's achievement is that he not only makes these two Mozarts equally believable but also indicates that they are not two distinct individuals but rather two aspects of the same complex personality. There are also good performances from Jeffrey Jones as the conscientious but bumbling and musically tone deaf Emperor Joseph and Roy Dotrice as Mozart's autocratic father Leopold.

    "Amadeus" is not, and is not intended as, a factually accurate biopic of Mozart. As Peter Shaffer, who wrote both the screenplay and the play on which it was based, was well aware, there is no real evidence that Salieri was obsessively jealous of Mozart, and absolutely none to support the old legend that he murdered him. He was not in reality a celibate puritan- he had a wife, eight children and a mistress. Shaffer uses this legend as the basis of a fictional story which explores complex questions about the nature of artistic creativity and the relationship between man and God.

    The film, deservedly, won the "Best Picture" Oscar for 1984; indeed, it is in my view one of the finest films of the eighties. It works on a number of levels- as a lavish piece of "heritage cinema" recreating the Europe of the late 18th century (the sets and costumes are particularly fine), as an intellectual exploration of philosophical issues, as a well-acted human drama, as a fictionalised study of a great man. The soundtrack is heavenly, but that is only to be expected, containing as it does some of Mozart's greatest music.

    The film has had a curious side effect. It could have condemned Salieri to perpetual infamy as a jealous minor composer who was supposedly responsible for the death of a great one. Instead, it seems to have led to a revival of interest in his work; he is certainly better known today than he was in 1984. Many musicians would now regard him as something far more than the "patron saint of mediocrities". God may have answered Salieri's prayers long after his death. 10/10
    tombew

    A triumph of genius

    "Amadeus", while historically inaccurate in numerous ways, is a brilliant film. Its central character is not a man but an attribute of man at his most remarkable: genius. Mozart's genius was at the highest level, on par with Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Balanchine. Forman knew this when he undertook translating Peter Shaffer's play. Although most of the acting is on a very high plane, the actors themselves are not top tier, not should they be. A famous, easily recognizable actor would have detracted from the central thesis that genius is greater than the one on whom it has been entrusted. Mozart was, of course, deeper than the character shown in the movie, but no personal life could equal the extent and depth of the musical genius that flowed from this little man. The letters he sent to his father show a remarkable sensitivity and depth of understanding. However, they are not paradigms of literary greatness. The immense contribution of W. A. Mozart lay in some of the most sublime music ever written. Fortunately, the film gave us snippets of some of the real gems in the Mozart canon: the great C Minor Mass, the Requiem and "Don Giovanni". Forman realized that no human being will ever be great enough or have the background to pen such masterpieces without intervention from elsewhere. This is certainly true of Shakespeare as well. So what we have here, ultimately, is a celebration of genius, that great gift to mankind that nearly always proves to be too much for the person who is chosen to manifest it to the rest of us. Many thanks to Milos Forman for the wisdom to keep out of the way and allow genius to shine through. In that sense, "Amadeus" is an exercise in humility. Few films come across as blessings for those who experience them. "Amadeus" is one such film.
    DRIAINCLARK

    Ravishing in sound and vision

    The unseen star of this film is the Academy of St Martin's in the Field, London. Buy the soundtrack and you will be rewarded with some of the most stunning music you can hear. Mozart's music excells with brilliant treatment and dies with a bad performance. And that, after all, is what the film is about. Without his music, Mozart would be lost in time, a fate that the narrator of the story, the composer Salieri, saw as his own. Ironically, while Salieri has indeed been completely overshadowed by Mozart, his music still survives and has its followers.

    But beyond the music this is an outstanding film. Set in the prettiest and most flamboyant century of the last millennium, it is visually stunning and the writer's portrayal of jealousy is perceptive. The casting of the Austrian King and courtiers, (indeed all the actors in this film) that Mozart needed to impress capture the gentility and courtesy of the time, and also subtly shows their growing indignation and impatience at Mozart's personality and behaviour; the presentation of Mozart as punk musician is probably the only failing in the film. As a theatrical device to show that genius can come in disastrous packages it succeeds well, but anyone with any historic sense of social ettiquette or manners will know that Mozart's sill y behaviour would be well wide of the truth, as might, perhaps, be the concept of Salieri as murderer-in-chief. Only in the final scenes is Mozart's brilliance as a composer truly explored in what amounts to a deconstruction of his final composition - his moving, uncompleted and poignant Requiem mass.

    Another unintended star in this film are the candle lit sets and theatres of the 18th Century; their operas and drama ooze a magic that is lacking in the present world and which modern producers might well try to reintroduce; so lovely are these buildings with their flickering lights and theatrical techniques that one is left desperate to to seek out these rare theatres to experience them.

    This film leaves one breathless from its visual beauty, its magnificent score and the choreography, indeed, of the two together. Mozart's life had the air of tragedy, and his undoubted genius speaks to us now and forever. This film is a monument to the skills of the writer, maker, performers and, of course, Mozart's music. If you have not yet done so, see it.

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The film ironically helped spark a revival of Salieri's music, which had previously languished in obscurity.
    • Goofs
      Both Mozart and Salieri are shown conducting an orchestra in modern style, by standing in front and waving the arms. In the 18th century, the conductor played first violin or harpsichord, the other musicians watching his head and hand movements. It was the rise of large orchestras in the 19th century that forced the conductor to abandon his instrument and take a more visible position.
    • Quotes

      Antonio Salieri: [reflecting upon a Mozart score] On the page it looked nothing. The beginning simple, almost comic. Just a pulse. Bassoons and basset horns, like a rusty squeezebox. And then suddenly, high above it, an oboe. A single note, hanging there, unwavering. Until a clarinet took over and sweetened it into a phrase of such delight! This was no composition by a performing monkey! This was a music I'd never heard. Filled with such longing, such unfulfillable longing, it had me trembling. It seemed to me that I was hearing the voice of God.

    • Crazy credits
      The producer, screenplay writer and director thank the following for their boundless assistance in our effort to present the physical authenticity and aura you have seen and felt in "Amadeus": -The National Theatre of Czechoslovakia and Prague's Tyl Theatre management for allowing us to film in the Tyl sequences from the operas: "Abduction from the Seraglio," "The Marriage of Figaro," and "Don Giovanni." It was actually in this magnificently preserved theatre that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart conducted the premiere performance of "Don Giovanni" on October 29, 1787. -His Eminence Cardinal Frantisek Tomasek for his kindness in permitting us to use his beautiful residence headquarters in Prague as the Emperor's palace. -The Barrandov Studios and CS Filmexport for their help in filming "Amadeus" in Prague and in castles and palaces throughout Czechoslovakia.
    • Alternate versions
      The Orion Pictures logo, which was seen at the beginning of the film when it was first released theatrically, was not shown when the film played on both cable and commercial television, and is not seen on most VHS or DVD releases. It is included on the 1997 DVD of the theatrical cut, as well as the 2024 4K restoration.
    • Connections
      Edited into Amadeus: 25th Symphony in G Minor (1985)
    • Soundtracks
      Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), K. 492, Act IV, Ah Tutti Contenti
      (1786) (uncredited)

      Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

      Libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte

      Performed by The Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields (as Academy of St Martin In The Fields)

      Conducted by Neville Marriner

      Excerpts Sung by Samuel Ramey (Figaro), Felicity Lott (Countess), Richard Stilwell (Count Almaviva), Isobel Buchanan (as Isabel Buchanan) (Susanna), Anne Howells (Cherubino), Deborah Rees (Barbarina), Alexander Oliver (Basilio), Robin Leggate (Don Curzio), John Tomlinson (Dr. Bartolo), and Willard White (Antonio)

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    FAQ28

    • How long is Amadeus?Powered by Alexa
    • Why does the majority of the cast speak with American accents when the actual historical figures are Austrian, Italian, etc?
    • Is "Amadeus" based on a book?
    • Why is this film titled with Mozart's supposed middle name?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 19, 1984 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • United States
      • France
    • Official site
      • Official Facebook
    • Languages
      • English
      • Italian
      • Latin
      • German
      • French
    • Also known as
      • Peter Shaffer's Amadeus
    • Filming locations
      • Barrandov Studios, Prague, Czech Republic(Studio, Volkstheater, Hospital Room, Mozart's Apartment and Staircase sets)
    • Production companies
      • The Saul Zaentz Company
      • AMLF
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $18,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $51,973,029
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $505,276
      • Sep 23, 1984
    • Gross worldwide
      • $52,113,524
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 40 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Aspect ratio
      • 2.39 : 1

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