Poster © Orion Pictures. Shown at reduced size for review and commentary.
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GenreBiography, Drama & Music
RatedR
Runtime2 hr 40 mins
ReleasedSeptember 19, 1984
StreamingSee Where to Watch
DirectorMiloš Forman
StarringF. Murray Abraham, Tom Hulce, Elizabeth Berridge
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Amadeus (1984)
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| 🎫Get Tickets | ✎Edit History |
| iIMDb Profile | %Rotten Tomatoes |
| WWikipedia | LLetterboxd |
| TTMDB | +Add to Top 8 |
| Amadeus's Details | |
| Genre | Biography, Drama & Music |
| Rated | R |
| Released | 09/06/1984 (Los Angeles); 09/19/1984 (United States) |
| Streaming | See Where to Watch on this page. |
| Running Time | 2 hr 40 mins |
| Budget | $18M (reported) |
| Box Office | Updated daily from Box Office Mojo. See the numbers below. |
| Based On | Amadeus by Peter Shaffer |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Amadeus's Interests | |
| General | Powdered wigs, opera premieres, pastries, imperial court politics, one extremely loud laugh. |
| Music | Mozart, obviously. Neville Marriner conducts the Academy of St Martin in the Fields. |
| Movies | Immortal Beloved (1994). Beethoven gets the moody biopic treatment. |
| Television | Mozart in the Jungle. Classical music drama, slightly fewer wigs. |
| Heroes | Emperor Joseph II, whose entire review of an opera was too many notes. |
| Amadeus's Crew | |
| Director | Miloš Forman |
| Writers | Peter Shaffer |
| Producers | Saul Zaentz |
| Cinematography | Miroslav Ondříček |
| Edited By | Nena Danevic, Michael Chandler |
| Production | The Saul Zaentz Company |
| Distributed By | Orion Pictures (United States), Thorn EMI Screen Entertainment (International) |
Imagine landing a palace job, an emperor who likes you and a city that hums your tunes, then losing your entire mind because the new guy giggles. That’s Salieri, and F. Murray Abraham plays him like a man chewing glass to stay polite. Tom Hulce’s Mozart laughs like a goose losing an argument, and the movie makes you live with that laugh for 160 minutes. Everybody in 1780s Vienna sounds like they’re from Ohio, which nobody explains. None of it matters. Watching Salieri flip through Mozart’s original pages and realize there isn’t a single scratched-out note is scarier than most horror movies. The Emperor complaining that an opera has too many notes is the best bad review ever written. It made $52.3 million worldwide on a reported $18M, and 474,678 IMDb ratings average an 8.4. A 9.3 because it’s the sharpest movie ever made about being second best, and the runtime is the only thing keeping it from a 10. $487 says you finish it and immediately feel threatened by a coworker who whistles.
What works: F. Murray Abraham’s Salieri, music that drives the plot like a thriller score, and a jealousy story that hits anyone who’s been outworked by pure talent.
What doesn’t: At 160 minutes it takes its sweet time, and Mozart’s giggle will test your patience long before the drama peaks.
Who it’s for: Anyone who has ever quietly resented a coworker who makes the hard stuff look easy.
Spoilers
Salieri secretly commissions a Requiem from Mozart while hiding behind a mask, planning to pass it off as his own at Mozart’s funeral. Mozart dies before finishing it, and old Salieri ends the film wheeling through the asylum, blessing every ordinary person he passes.
Vienna, 1823. An old man named Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham) sits in an asylum and tells a young priest he has something terrible to confess about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Then he rewinds. Decades earlier, Salieri, who once promised God his whole life in exchange for musical greatness, was the proud court composer for Emperor Joseph II (Jeffrey Jones). Then young Mozart (Tom Hulce) shows up in Vienna, giggling, rude, and writing masterpieces with zero corrections. Salieri cannot stand it, and he cannot stop listening. Miloš Forman directs. One hundred sixty-one minutes, every note in its place.
Anyone who has worked next to a genius who makes it look easy. We feel you.
| F. Murray Abraham | Antonio Salieri |
| Tom Hulce | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart |
| Elizabeth Berridge | Constanze Mozart |
| Roy Dotrice | Leopold Mozart |
| Simon Callow | Emanuel Schikaneder |
| Christine Ebersole | Caterina Cavalieri |
| Jeffrey Jones | Emperor Joseph II |
| Charles Kay | Count Orsini-Rosenberg |
| Kenneth McMillan | Michael Schlumberg |
| Kenny Baker | Parody Commendatore |
| Lisabeth Bartlett | Papagena |
| Barbara Bryne | Frau Weber |
| Roderick Cook | Count von Strack |
| Milan Demjanenko | Karl Mozart |
| Peter DiGesu | Francesco Salieri |
| Marta Jarolímková | Archduchess Elisabeth |
| Michele Esposito | Salieri's student |
| Richard Frank | Father Vogler |
| Patrick Hines | Kapellmeister Giuseppe Bonno |
| Nicholas Kepros | Count Hieronymus von Colloredo |
| Philip Lenkowsky | Salieri's Servant |
| Herman Meckler | Priest |
| Jonathan Moore | Baron van Swieten |
| Cynthia Nixon | Lorl |
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 18 October 2026 DataBot +40 Numbers refreshed: IMDb users 8.4 / 10 (474,678 votes) → 8.4 / 10 (474,717 votes).
- (cur | prev) 14:30, 17 October 2026 DataBot +400 Numbers refreshed: Worldwide box office $52.3M; Domestic box office $52M; Opening weekend $505K; Profit / loss (est.) -$864K; Rotten Tomatoes 90%; box office chart updated; Rotten Tomatoes critics 90% (160 reviews); Metacritic 87 / 100; IMDb users 8.4 / 10 (474,678 votes); movie.guru score 9.5.
- (cur | prev) 12:00, 17 October 2026 DataBot +2,000 Profile created from Wikipedia and Box Office Mojo: cast, crew, release dates, budget, official trailer.