MovieChat Forums > Amadeus (1984) Discussion > Why is Amadeus Rated so Low

Why is Amadeus Rated so Low


Amadeus is ranked 90th on the Top 250 list. I don't expect everyone to agree with my no. 1 ranking but 90 seems way too low. Let's compare Amadeus to The Shawshank Redemption:

Plot: The strong point of TSR is probably the plot. Yet, the Amadeus plot is ingenious. The Protagonist is Salieri and the Antagonist is GOD. Yet, the story focuses on Mozart.

Awards: Amadeus won more Oscars than TSR. Most people agree that F. Murray Abraham's performance was one of the all-time best.
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Music: Maybe this is unfair to list Music as a category. How could any movie compare with Amadeus in that category. Most people rate Mozart as the greatest musical genius of all-time.

My opinion is that many people are objecting to the liberties taken with the facts in Amadeus. In reality Salieri and Mozart were good friends. TSR does not have this problem and thus the 9.3 rating.

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So, the rating is not too low by IMDB standards: an 8.3.

Amadeus won lots of Oscars, back before they became so political. The movie was not hugely financially successful, but this is because of people's knee-jerk reactions to period dramas. F Murray Abraham's performance probably gets analyzed in college level film and acting courses.

This is a collection film, one that you can watch over and over again and never get tired of because of the music and the performances.

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How could God be the antagonist if there is no God?

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I wouldn't put too much into it. A lot of IMDB's Top 250 is flooded with fanboyism and mass voting.

I enjoyed Nolan's films and Fight Club as much as the next person, but those are the films that shoot up to the top. So other classics like Amadeus or Seven Samurai keep falling lower. When you see Joker 2019 hit the Top 10 while Taxi Driver falls out of the top 30, you know things are getting 'whack'.

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Like I have said before, allowing 13 year olds to rate movies leads to stuff like The Dark Knight getting a better rating than Amadeus. Another 2 Oscar winning films Terms of Endearment and Driving Miss Daisy get rated around 7/10 on imdb.

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I'm not curious why it is 90th on the list, I'm curious why it is even on the list. It's a silly movie about an idiot who happened to be able to compose music, but who bears little actual resemblance to Mozart. It's pop entertainment for the masses who are unfamiliar with classical music and its history.

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