directed by milos forman . written by peter shaffer ( based on his play ) . running time : 158 minutes . rated pg ( for language and sexual references ) . amadeus is considered one of the best films of the 1980s . that decade mostly developed brat pack films so there's no doubt that the epic film would be one of the best . it made the american film institute's top 100 list in the summer of 1998 . although it is not as good as some of the films near the bottom or off the list it still deserves it's place in cinema . antonio salieri ( f . murray abraham ) is a struggling composer who has worked hard to become great . throughout his childhood he has seen a little boy named wolfgang amadeus mozart . the young boy performed for royalty . when mozart grows up he is a giddy , over excited brat ( played now by tom hulce ) who makes obscene comments to women and curses . salieri can't understand why god has chosen such a delinquent to pass his music through . salieri swears hatred on mozart and the god who raised him to his status . the highlight of this movie is , of course , the music . john strauss did much of it but also included music by mozart , salieri , and giovanni battista pergolesi . the music is used beautifully in the many operas that take place during the movie . hulce and abraham do a great job acting during their many scenes of conducting and piano playing . abraham and hulce each were awarded academy award recognition which they deserve . abraham won best actor over hulce , which isn't wrong because two people can't win . abraham plays salieri with all the hatred he can without becoming an evil character . he has no heart and just wants the life that he thinks was taken from him as a brilliant composer . hulce does an excellent job as well as the eccentric mozart . he is able to act extremely serious during his compositions but then chase a woman around a house . this was easily his best role to date . he is very well cast with his young looking face and acting talent . director milos forman along with cinematographer miroslav ondrícek and the art and production designers have created one beautiful movie . the opera theater scenes , along with wonderful wigs , costumes , and makeup , are a delight to watch . the use of scope is also very good . now to why i believe amadeus to be less a film then the afi makes it to be . while i do really like many things about this movie i still have some complaints . the movie is quite long at 158 minutes . the movie isn't boring and is much shorter than other epics but it is still quite a long time . a couple of scenes could have been shortened and not have hurt the movie much . with my complaint aside , i can still say that amadeus was definitely one of the better movies to come out in the 80s . i don't know if it's one of 100 best of all time but it is a very good movie . 
