Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1984 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. It was also the start to a major shift in cultural and societal norms, and some of those still reverberate to this day.
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We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly four dozen.
Yes, we’re insane, but 1984 was that great of a year for film.
The articles will come out – in most cases – on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversary. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory. In some cases, it truly will be the first time we’ve seen them.
This time around, it’s Sept. 19, 1984, and we’re off to see Amadeus.
Amadeus
(This review was originally published in 2019 when I first got this idea for the project. I watched the film again in 2024, and portions of the review have been updated.)
What can you really say about this movie that hasn’t been said? I watched the director’s cut, which is 20 minutes longer than the theatrical cut, but it has been so long since I saw it that I couldn’t begin to tell you what is extra in it.
The movie won multiple Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Film, Best Actor (for F. Murray Abraham, not Tom Hulce), and so on. And it’s clear to see why. The movie is just a delight from beginning to end, even at a three-hour running time.
If you’re unfamiliar with the film, it follows the life of the composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce) as told through the eyes of Antonio Sallieri (F. Murray Abraham). It doesn’t sugarcoat anything, and it makes it clear that Mozart had a very troubled life, something that is not unusual with artists of his stature.
Using the framing device of Salieri “confessing” to the murder of Amadeus works beautifully and is one of the most engaging devices I’ve ever seen in a musical biopic. Which makes no mistake, this is just a super fancy musical biopic like any of the many others released over the years.
One of the most beautiful things is just how timeless this movie is. As we’ve worked our way through the films of 1984, there has been disturbing event after disturbing event. (We’re looking at you, Revenge of the Nerds!) I could just as easily see this movie being made today.
If I had any complaint in the entire movie, and it is a minor one, is if I had heard Constanze Mozart (Elizabeth Berridge) call Mozart “Wolfie” one more time, I may have screamed. I get it, but it was still tiresome, to say the least.
It’s still an insanely watchable movie and very worth your time.
1984 Movie Reviews will return on Sept. 21 with All of Me, The Evil That Men Do, Places in the Heart, The River Rat, Until September, and Windy City!
