What is your favorite movie?

Along with all those here I have to agree this should be on the top 100. The acting, casting, and directing were superb. Even if not on the list it will always be in my top 100.

Anytime you add Martin Scorsese with Robert De Nero and some Joe Pesci, you will make one hell of a film.

The acting, the direction, the script, the sets, the costumes, and the music, the MAGNIFICENT MUSIC . . . WOW!

I am very disappointed that Amadeus is not on the AFI top 100 list. In 1985 it was the most popular film in history of the world. Sadly, people today are not connecting with the genius of this film.

One of the brilliant scenes occurs at the beginning when the young priest visits Solieri in the asylum and says, “all men are created equal in the eyes of God.” And Solieri replys, “Are they?” with subtle contempt for the lack of understanding this young priest has for reality. This example of sublime foreshadowing demonstrates the subtle beauty of this film. This understated elegance melds with the glorious music.

Another example of this subtle direction is during the gate scene. Near the end of the story, the funeral of Mozart begins with his Lacrymosa from the death Mass. As this music is playing in the background you see all of the characters walk to the gate of the city and stop, in the rain, as Mozart’s coffin rides on to the graveyard. This highly symbolic moment makes me cry everytime. This scene forces us all, as the mourners in the film, to stop at the gates of our own mediocry as true genius passes on to eternity. This is the message of the whole film told in a chilling, sad moment. As the mourners cry, and me too, we don’t cry for Mozart. We cry over the subliminal knowledge that we have been touched by greatness and we can never measure up to it.

A truly moving and humbling story. A lesson for us all. Put this film back on the Top 100 list.

I can’t understand why this not in the top 100 anymore… I have gone through 2 VHS tapes and scratched up a DVD with this movie. I was the weird kid who was in love with Mozart. Although very little of movie is true, being able to enter into minds that are artistically and dramatically different from others is outstanding. I’m mad it has been taken off the best films, it just proving to society that music and the arts are falling- and that can’t happen! What’s next in the artistic world to fall, motion pictures?!

It’s impossible to pick one; tomorrow I could have chosen Jaws or Godfather, Raging Bull.

But this movie for me was a film that simply was brilliant, in every aspect a a film: writing, acting, directing, costumes and on and on. The story is a universal one; in that it entails mediocrity v.s. genius. Of course this opens up jealousy, revenge, and plotting. All of them executed to perfection. How this film missed the AFI 100’s and a film like Six Sense made it, is beyond me.

It also made me a fan of heir Mozart

I believe the list 10 years ago had ‘Amadeus’ at around 50something so when the latest list completely omitted the movie altogether I was outraged. It is my all time favorite movie and I guess due to the fact that it isnt very popular anymore, lesser films made the list this year while this gem is now endangered and damn near close to forgotten. Sad, sad commentary.

THIS IS TOP 10 MOVIE EVER MADE AND HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MUSIC OR W.A.MOZART.SUCH DIRECTORY AND DIRECTORY IS 50% OF MOVIE YOU WILL FIND TODAY IN TRACES,AT LEAST NOT IN HOLYWOOD.IT WAS ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLYWOOD MILOS FORMAN AND THANKS GOD HE MADE ANOTHER TOP TEN MOVIE ONE FLEW OVER…STILL ON 100 LIST.THANK YOU MR.FORMAN FOR YOUR MASTERPIECE WORK.

Year’s ago when I first saw the movie, I was much younger and was disappointed when it won Best Picture. When I watched it again several years later, I quickly came to realize how wonderful a movie it is. I have read a great deal about Mozart and the movie did justice to possibly the greatest muscian of all time.

Amadeus getting knocked off AFI Top 100 films is a HUGE JOKE and it proves that AFI’s system is flawed.

Great CBS show and movie selection last night except you forgot those 2 great movies : Amadeus (best classical music movie) and Patton (second best WWII movie) this time around…

Charles Desmarteau
Movie fanatic
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

I can’t believe that this film was not on AFI’s Top 100 list this year. On their last list it was No. #53 and now it’s completely off the list…it doesn’t make any sense. This is a movie that you have to watch more than once in order to truly enjoy and appreciate. In fact, this movie won 8 Academy Awards.

The music, the scenery, the directing, the acting, the story. I could not get this movie out of my head. I saw this movie 13 times in the theater. I saw it by myself several times. When others hadn’t seen it, I offered to go with them to see it again. I don’t believe there has every been a better use of all parts of a movie to make a whole. Bravo to Milos Forman and F. Murray Abraham, and Tom Hulce.

I saw this movie for the first time when I was in 9th grade. The band was taking a field trip to see “The Magic Flute” and the director wanted us to see the part in the film that shows that performance. That night I asked my dad to go get that movie from the video store and I watched it once a week for over a month. I loved Tom Hulce’s portrayal of Mozart. BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I watched this movie three times in a row the first time I saw it. I think the acting, the sets, the music, and the story are all incredible. You get swept away into another world every time. This movie should be watched outside of music classes.

I watched this movie during an amazing Christmas season. I couldn’t stop thinking about it and humming the music. It has influenced me as a writer and music lover. The story has everything–love, murder, mystery, comedy, tragedy, revenge, suspense, beauty, and music. It is the ultimate story. To me it is a flawless film, that I will never stop loving. Fact or fiction, who cares; the legacy of Mozart and Salieri are preserved a little more because of this film.

By: David Nelson

A 6-year-old learns to love movies and music from an amazing film.

I first saw “Amadeus” on a Beta videotape when I was 6 years old. You wouldn’t think a 6-year-old would find anything remotely interesting about a nearly three-hour biopic about a classical composer in the 1700s, but, improbably, it instantly became my favorite movie, and has remained that way ever since.

“Amadeus” is no stuffy costume drama — it is a hilarious, moving, monumental event. I don’t watch “Amadeus” — “Amadeus” is like something that is happening to me, something I am participating in. At age 6, I loved it for Mozart’s childish laugh, and for the unbelievable music. At age 27, I still love those things, but I also love it for its portrait of genius, madness, envy, addiction and weakness. “Amadeus” provides me with everything I could hope from in a movie.

“Amadeus” began my lifelong love affair with the movies, one that has seen its share of fun romps (”The Fifth Element,” “Star Wars”), dark beauties (”Apocalypse Now,” “Fight Club”), hopeless romantics (”It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Casablanca”) and unfettered infatuations (”Magnolia” and “Pulp Fiction”).

But most of all, of course, “Amadeus” gave me music. Brilliant, beautiful music from a brilliant, beautiful and insane man. It is because of “Amadeus” that my first cherished CDs were by Mozart and Bach, not by Guns N’ Roses or Metallica (but I would come to cherish those as well). The relationship between film and music is inescapable, yet often overlooked (or even written off); and no film marries the two better than “Amadeus.” Salieri finds absolute ecstasy as he looks at Mozart’s work, just as I have found when listening to great music — whether it’s by Beethoven or Iron Maiden. Later on, Salieri gets to peer into the mind of the master when he helps a dying Mozart write the requiem — if there is a God, Salieri has come closest to meeting him in that instant. I long for that feeling, especially in a world that offers me no hope, no evidence that we are being shepherded along by a higher power.

“Amadeus” means “beloved of God,” which to me is an impossible, unattainable thing. I don’t believe in God, but I do believe in mankind, and that mankind is capable of great things. “Amadeus” is a great, great thing, and watching it is as close to a religious experience that this jaded man has ever come.
By: Sean Stangland