Rating: 
Summary: a mythical, fabulous portrait of genius
Review: Peter Shaffer wrote the "Amadeus" screenplay based on his play, which is a quirky, fanciful vision of Mozart and Salieri, and how God gave Mozart the gift of musical genius despite his character flaws, but bypassed Salieri, who tried to strike a deal with the Almighty, vowing pious devotion, if He would only grant him brilliance and fame.
F. Murray Abraham is marvelous portraying Salieri's pride and envy, and having to suffer the indignity of mediocrity; the part garnered him a Best Actor Oscar and a Golden Globe, among other awards, and as Mozart, Tom Hulce is stupendous, with his high pitched raucous giggle, fluffy wigs, and energetic appeal.
Others in the cast of note are Elizabeth Berridge, excellent as Mozart's wife Constanza, and Roy Dotrice as his stern father Leopold.The biggest star of the film however, is the music...the glorious sounds of Mozart's operas, and his magnificent Requiem. Many of my favorite scenes are depicted, from the ballet music from "The Marriage of Figaro", to "Don Giovanni a cenar teco", as well as portions of "The Marriage of Figaro", "The Magic Flute", and much more.
Some of the great voices heard are Samuel Ramey (Figaro), Richard Stilwell (Count Almaviva / Don Giovanni), June Anderson (Queen of the Night), Brian Kay (Papageno) and Gillian Fisher (Papagena), though the parts on screen are played by actors, and not those singing. Twyla Tharp's choreography is fresh and exhilarating, Miroslav Ondricek's cinematography is exquisite, and Milos Forman's direction imaginative and well paced.
As well as Best Actor, the Academy bestowed Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Art Direction/Set Decoration, Best Costume Design, Best Makeup, Best Sound, all well deserved.
Total running time is 160 minutes.
Rating:
Summary: one of my favorites
Review: it seems like it would be a very boring and dull movie, but it is not. i find it very entertaining and incredible. ive always thought this was a good movie, despite the people who say its boring. one of my favorite scenes in all of the movies ive seen is the scene in amadeus when wolfgang takes salieri's song that the emporor played for wolfgang when he came in. then wolfgang replies the song is already in his head from one hearing when offered to keep the sheet of music. when challenged to show them, wolfgang not only plays the song, but makes it better and better and faster and faster. it is truly a great scene. and the guy who played salieri deserved greatly to win best actor back in 1984 with this movie. he was SO good. anyway, its a good one movie. EASILY in my top ten movies of all time. but if you dont like period movies, or if you dont like ver intellegent movies that are "boring," then dont watch this. you will find no satisfaction. have an open mind when watching this.
Rating:
Summary: A TRUE MASTERPIECE ! ! ! ! ! !
Review: A masterpiece indeed. A great example of a descent biography movie. It's funny and interesting and at the same time so informative and dramatical. I suggest you watch this movie along with IMMORTAL BELOVED. Both of them are true works of art, belive it or not. Buy or rent this movie so you can watch it at least two or three times. That's what I did. If you like a true descent movie masterpiece. This one and IMMORTAL BELOVED are specially for those. Don't miss this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good but not great
Review: I would say that this is a great movie up until the point where Mozart's father moves in with him and then it degrades from there.
Yes, there are also inaccuracies [he had more children then the movie shows] but overall I would say watch this movie for the music and not so much for the story. Not that the story isn't good but they have twisted it to fit a movie format and not so to show the actual biography of Mozart.
This edition also shows some frontal nudity of Mozart's wife, not that it matters much but it also has some longer scenes that I think were better left out of this movie. I would get the original released version as shorter is better.
Rating:
Summary: My favourite movie!
Review: This is one of the best movies i have seen for a long time. In fact it is the movie that got me into classical music. The scene with Saglieri explaining one of Amadeus piece is one of the best ever. You should get this one even if you are not interested in Mozart. Maybe in the end you will be.
Rating: 
Summary: 10 stars for the movie, 1 star for this version
Review: I'm not the only one here who adores this film, so I'm not sure why so many people are raving about an extra 20 minutes added to a perfectly structured film. So we get some more background on minor subplots--so? It was enough for me to know that Mozart was irresponsible, that he had no students, and that Constanze resented Salieri because he refused to help Mozart get a court position. I didn't need to see this dragged-out, talky extra footage reiterating how jealous Salieri is, how childish Mozart is, and the "new" portrayal of Constanze is totally non-credible and offensive. Much of the new footage clashes with characterization at other points in the film, and all three major characters end up less likable as a result. At least they spared us more "background details" such as where he bought his shoes, etc.
Rating:
Summary: The pain of mediocrity in the face of genius
Review: One of the best films of the 1980's, "Amadeus" succeeds on so many levels that even those who have no interest in classical music can appreciate the dramatic struggle between two classical musicians, Antonio Salieri and Wolfgang Mozart. Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) is a composer in Emperor Joseph's court; conscientious and reverent, he is dedicated to both God and music. When vulgar, spoiled rotten Mozart (Tom Hulce) arrives in Vienna, Salieri recognizes Mozart's musical talent for the genius it is. When his initial offerings of professional friendliness are rebuffed, Salieri begins to seethe with the injustice of such pure genius inhabiting a careless hedonist more interested in chasing women and getting drunk than in discipline. Salieri would like nothing more than to be great while Mozart treats his talent with recklessness. The rift between the two composers becomes deep-rooted and dangerous.
F. Murray Abraham's Salieri and Tom Hulce's Mozart are so perfectly at odds that it seems unbelievable that this film could have been made with different actors. Abraham's somber, restrained, desperately ambitious Salieri makes a wonderful foil to Hulce's high-pitched, goofy, hormone-driven Mozart. We can fully see Salieri's grief that such brilliant compositions could come from the mind of such a person. The heartbreak of this film is two-fold: that Salieri recognizes his mediocrity and loathes his life for it, and that Mozart never fully realizes his already awe-inspiring genius.
The historical accuracy of the script is moot since the real story here is the pain of being mediocre in the proximity of such exceptional talent. Mozart and Salieri as characters merely up the stakes, since we know which survived best the ravages of time. Mozart's music provides both context and an added dimension to this classic struggle between desire and possession.
This is one of those films that everyone should see, both as a cultural document and as an example of the finest meld of story and cinematic realization. You will be able to watch it again and again without tiring of it.
Rating:
Summary: deserves a classification all its own
Review: I've got to relate a short story regarding my first experience with this movie. It was spring,1984, I was full of life and hope. I had just realized my dream of buying a consumer electronics franchise store, and was doing a crash three-week training in Denver, at that time probably my favorite city. I'd become very close to one of the trainers. One evening he invited me to dinner at his house, and I accepted. As we were eating (and drinking), we started talking about entertainment, movies in particular, and how things were changing. He lamented the fact that there was only one of the old glorious "surround screen" theatres left in Denver, and it was only 15 minutes from where he lived. I asked what was playing there. He grabbed a paper and said "Amadeus!!!" I said "when does it start?" He says "15 minutes" and I said "what are we waiting for?"
The movie opened just as we were walking to our seat. We were both immediately so absorbed that we just stood there, awestruck. The dramatic opening combined with the huge screen and overwheming sound totally mesmerized us. We finally found our way to a seat, and for the next 2 hours and 40 minutes, I can remember nothing but being totally transfixed by and trasported to a world totally its own. It was beyond suspension of disbelieve; I was part of this experience, inside the world that was created by Forman.
As the Forman and Shaffer state, the music was a character, perhaps the main character, in the film. The music served to enhance the characters, enhance the plot, and enhance the screenplay itself. Every aspect of the film was beyond perfection, every performance transparant. The fact that it explored so many ironies, explored them so well, and let the music take front and center stage separates this film from other "bio-flicks"; indeed separates this film from any other ever made.
Don't let the fact that it's not based on fact (entirely) dissuade you. The liberties Shaffer takes are all justified by the magnificent plot he creates. Don't let the length dissuade you. If you can devote three hours (if you watch the director's cut) to this, you would have to plain dislike music, all music, to dislike this film. Rather, this film will enrich, provoke, entertain and make us feel our own mortality in a way that makes us feel better. Anyone who is untouched by the final scene just might be incapable of being touched by anything.
I you are a music lover and have not seen this film, shame on you. If you want to know the truth concerning Mozart's life, there are plenty of libraries to obtain what is known. But if you want to capture the spirt of the music, the spirit of the man (Mozart), the torment of his competitor (Salieri), and a true taste of what the world was like in Mozart's time and place, there is no better place to go than this film. If you could care less about all that and just want to see a good movie, there is no better place to go than to this film.
Rating:
Summary: God's beloved
Review: Before commiting yourself to this read, I would like to point out that this is a very, very long review. Such a movie deserves no less. I've been reading some of the reviews here, and found a lot of derogatory comments about the movie's inaccuracy. Not the playright, nor the director made any claims of historical accuracy on this movie. It's a fiction based on real historical caracters. Other than the many hits this movie seems to be getting about it's inaccuracy, there was even one person who wrongly said that it should be presented in music classes!!! Although this review should be about the movie and not about historical truth, I can't help myself from pointing out certain false informations printed by certain people. One person said that Mozart died at the age of 34. Actually he was one month short of his 36th birthday. I also read somewhere that he was writing operas by the age of 6. In fact, he wrote his first opera when he was twice that age! Oh and two people claimed that Mozart was not appreciated in his own time. I'm getting sick and tired of people throwing that cliche around about every single philosophical, musical, scientific, artistic, or literary genius that ever lived. People in his time were well aware of his creative superiority. Read any biography on him and you will see this to be true. There were reasons for his financial problems, and lack of popularity wasn't one of them. Before I proceed with my comments on the movie, here are some other facts. In truth, Salieri was not chaste. He got married at the age of 24, and raised a ridiculously big number of children. So, by the time he met Mozart, he had been a family man for 8 years. We also know that Count Walsegg was the one who comissioned the Requiem, and Mozart was well aware of this, despite the Counts discretion. Everyone in Vienna knew of the Counts reputation for commissioning works from famous composers to pass off as his own in concerts thrown at his parties. And Mozart's pupil Franz Xavier Sussmayr was the one Mozart was dictating the Requiem to while his wife, his doctor, and many others were around him at his death (Salieri was not there). Mozart knew he was dying, and believed he was writting the Requiem for himself; not his father, as implied in the movie. His opera Don Giovanni, although blattantly obvious in it's insinuations on Mozart's relationship with his father, was composed before Leopold's death; not as a result of it. Mozart and Constanze actually accompanied Salieri and his wife to the premiere of The Magic Flute. Yes, Salieri was jealous of Mozart and repeatedly suppressed his advancement. There are many documented proofs of this, as well as proofs that I'm sure are lost or destroyed by Salieri himself, as the playwrite noted. Who killed Mozart? or was he indeed killed? are questions that only God can answer. But in my opinion, if there exists so much proof of Salieri's interference with Mozart, and Salieri himself in his later years went raving about in madness that he murdered Mozart, and Mozart himself said that he started being under the impression that he was poisoned eversince they had dinner at Salieri's after the premiere of The Magic Flute, than that's enough for me to assume that he did kill him. But this is just an opinion. I think people make too much of "was Salieri jealous of Mozart?" That question does not answer whether or not he killed him. Much less after considering that EVERYONE WAS JEALOUS OF MOZART! There. That's for all you people who need factual information on Mozart's life to use in putting the movie down for not being accurate. And for those who accept the work as fiction, and care only to appreciate it as one, my opinion is that this movie is top 2 of all time material. The movie starts with Salieri's cries about having murdered Mozart (this is historically true). He is then carried to an assylum after a failed suicide attempt, where he tells his story to a young priest, with all his youthful, ignorant, and arrogant faith, wich by the end of the movie, is replaced with his clutching angrily at a crucifix with his head down, and tears coming down his eyes. One of the main things that people don't quite get in this movie, is Mozart's laugh. That laugh isn't just there for comic relief in this intense drama. The laugh is part of the drama. All Salieri ever wanted was to be a great composer. He sacrificed every non-christian impulse in his being to be granted that wish. And then comes Mozart. As non-christian as they get. As Salieri put it: "that was Mozart! That dirty minded creature I'd just seen crawling on the floor!" For all Salieri's sacrifices, God had granted an arrogant, dirty-minded, over-grown child, his own wish. What we must remember while watching this movie, is that your own relationship with God, or your own opinion of God, or whether or not you even believe in God, must be put aside. You must accept Salieri's God. A God who chose "for his instrument...a boastful, lustful, smutty, infantile boy...and gave him for reward only the ability to recognize this incarnation." You must accept God as "Unjust. Unfair. Unkind" and feel Salieri's misery at having become so loyal to God only to be abandoned. Helping others. Not allowing himself any indulgences. Being in love with a woman, then having Mozart sleep with her, along with being granted the pen with which God sounds himself to the world. Attempting to suppress the performance of The Marriage of Figaro to no avail. Even though the play had been banned by the emperor!! To have the Emperor himself! Who never attended rehearsals, come in and allow the ballet, which was also banned!! to be restored!!! "God was singing through this little man...to all the world..." I would like to comment on what one reviewer said about the nudity in one of the added scenes being irrelevant to the story. It does more than make sense Constanze's humiliated rudeness toward Salieri at the end of the movie. What it does more, is malign God even further, by showing Salieri nakedly, what he does not have. Through Constanze's bareness, God is now not only telling him that his sacrifices don't mean anything, but he is even going so far as to show him the power of what he's sacrificed. The power of what he's feeling by watching Mozart's wife strip off her clothes, after having dropped her husbands music on the floor in a mocking way, as if making fun of Salieri's awe as he himself dropped Mozart's scores after having lost firmness in his muscles at the sheer beauty of the music on her first visit. And the title of the movie: Mozart's middle name: "Amadeus". Which means "God's beloved"! Brilliant!!It's a brillianty fitting title!!And Mozart's ridiculous laugh. That laugh through which God makes himself physically known to Salieri. "That was not Mozart laughing father...that was God! That was God laughing at me through that obsene giggle!" There are many intense moments in this movie, all with brilliant acting. But to me, the most beautiful scene is the ending. Salieri is being strolled in his weelchair through the assylum, and, as the self-alleged champion of mediocrity, is pretenting to forgive the patients as a priest does: "mediocrities everywhere! I obsolve you!.." and then, he slowly tilts his head back, and puts his hands on his heart, as he hears in his mind, God still laughing at him. One last obsene giggle before the fall of the curtain. It's a beautiful movie. In the special features, Milos and Peter (the director and the playwrite) talk about how Mozart's music itself is a caracter in the movie. I would say that Mozart's laugh is just as much a caracter as the music. And the role that it plays, is the most sadistic role of all. With every laugh, Mozart's caracter splits into two. With every laugh, he stops being just Mozart, whom God loves more than Salieri, and also becomes the caracter of God himself. God laughing at Salieri through Mozart's vocal chords. Very creepy... Unfortunately it's been overlooked by all. It's been dismissed as a comic element. But fortunately, it's one of those movies that are enjoyable no matter how ignorant you are to it's essence. But once the essence is revealed, it is a staggering piece of cinema. And to those lucky ones who've never seen it and still have the chance to see it for the first time,.. you will never get tired of watching it. I've seen it at least once every 2 months for the last 15 years. So believe me. You will never tire of it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best movies made in the last 1/2 of the 20th cent
Review: Pure, and utter perfection in movie making.
Historical discrepencies aside, this is a movie first.
And, like all great movies, it can be viewed as several different stories.
One is the story of the life of Mozart. Again, not terribly historically acurate, but there it is.
One is the story of a man (Salieri) who is racked with envy.
One of the story of that same man that is at odds with his god that he so believed blessed him.
F. Murray Abraham is in reality the main focus of the movie and he was totally amazing.
His change from the begining of the movie when he is talking with the priest to how they both then look at the end says it all.
Absolutely fantasic. 6 out of 5 stars.
One of the greatest movies of all time.
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