Amadeus is a 1984 American period biographical drama film directed by Miloš Forman and adapted by Peter Shaffer from his 1979 stage play of the same name, starring F. Murray Abraham and Tom Hulce.

[4][5][6] In 1823, aged composer Antonio Salieri is committed to a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide, during which he claims that he murdered Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Renouncing Vienna's artistic establishment, Mozart agrees to write The Magic Flute for a commoners' theater.

Kenneth Branagh writes in his autobiography Beginning that he was one of the finalists for the role of Mozart, but was dropped from consideration when Forman decided to make the film with an American cast.

However, Forman ultimately decided not to cast him due to his association with the character of Luke Skywalker, feeling that audiences would not believe him as the composer.

[8] Meg Tilly was cast as Mozart's wife Constanze, but she tore a ligament in her leg the day before shooting started.

Simon Callow, who played Mozart in the original London stage production of Amadeus, was cast as Emanuel Schikaneder, the librettist of The Magic Flute.

[11] Forman was able to shoot scenes in the Count Nostitz Theatre in Prague, where Don Giovanni and La clemenza di Tito debuted two centuries before.

[12] Several other scenes were shot at the Barrandov Studios and Invalidovna building, a former hôtel des invalides, built in 1731–1737.

[14] Tom Hulce reportedly used John McEnroe's mood swings as a source of inspiration for his portrayal of Mozart's unpredictable genius.

The site's consensus states: "Amadeus' liberties with history may rankle some, but the creative marriage of Miloš Forman and Peter Shaffer yields a divinely diabolical myth of genius and mediocrity, buoyed by inspired casting and Mozart's rapturous music.

"[16] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 87 out of 100, based on 28 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

[18] Peter Travers of People magazine said that "Hulce and Abraham share a dual triumph in a film that stands as a provocative and prodigious achievement.

An AMPAS official quickly went onstage to confirm the winner and signaled that all was well before Olivier then presented the award to producer Saul Zaentz.

[24] Zaentz then thanked Olivier, saying it was an honor to receive the award from him,[25] before mentioning the other nominees in his acceptance speech: The Killing Fields, A Passage to India, Places in the Heart and A Soldier's Story.

[26] The film along with The English Patient, The Hurt Locker, The Artist, and Birdman are the only Best Picture winners never to enter the weekend box office top 5 after rankings began being recorded in 1982.

From the beginning, writer Peter Shaffer and director Miloš Forman both were open about their desire to create entertaining drama only loosely based on reality, calling the work a "fantasia on the theme of Mozart and Salieri".

The play was made into the opera Mozart and Salieri by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 67 years later,[45] which in turn had its first screen adaptation by silent-film director Victor Tourjansky in 1914.

[46] Another significant departure in the film is the portrayal of Salieri as a pious loner trapped in a vow of chastity when in reality he was a married family man with eight children and at least one mistress.

Forman defended the 20 minutes of cuts in his 1993 autobiography Turnaround,[50] and repeated his defense in the 1995 supplemental material for Pioneer's deluxe LaserDisc.

[52][53] Foreign Policy's Jordan Hoffmann added that the subplot featuring Christine Ebersole as a Salieri-favored singer who sleeps with Mozart, was "splendid.

More broadly, while promoting the Director's Cut, Forman argued that the unlimited running time of home video provided a better environment for the deleted scenes:When you finish a film, before the first paying audience sees it, you don't have any idea.

And in the '80s, with MTV on the scene, we are having a three-hour film about classical music, with long names and wigs and costumes.

[72] The Masonic Funeral Music was originally intended to play over the closing credits, but was replaced in the film by the second movement of the Piano Concerto No.

The following pieces were added for this release: The following pieces, previously released on More Music from the Original Soundtrack of the Film Amadeus, were not included: A TV series adaptation of the original Shaffer play starring Will Sharpe and Paul Bettany will air on Sky TV in late 2024.

[75] The pink wig worn by Mozart in the movie can be seen in the permanent exhibition of the Acadian Museum at the University of Moncton.