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Amadeus

In 1823, aged composer Antonio Salieri attempts suicide and is committed to a psychiatric hospital. He claims that he murdered Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Father Vogler, a young Catholic priest, encourages Salieri to confess his sins before God. After Vogler fails to recognize him, Salieri plays three old melodies to jog his memory. Vogler cannot recognize the first two (which Salieri wrote) but is relieved to recognize the third (Eine kleine Nachtmusik) at once. Salieri peevishly reveals that Mozart wrote it.

Salieri begins his confession by saying he grew up hearing stories about the child prodigy Mozart. In his youth, Salieri was in love with music but was forbidden by his father to study the craft. Salieri proposed that if God made him a famous musician like Mozart, he would give God his faithfulness, chastity, and diligence. Salieri's father soon dies, which he interprets as a sign that God has accepted his vow. By 1774, Salieri became court composer to Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II in Vienna. However, he has enough taste to know that Emperor Joseph has no ear for music, though Salieri prides himself on the popularity of his work.

After their first meeting, Salieri understands that Mozart is the better composer, but is shocked to learn that Mozart is obscene, immature, and dissolute. He also learns that Mozart never needs to pen a second draft of his music, implying divine inspiration. Salieri cannot fathom why God would choose a reprobate like Mozart as his earthly instrument. Salieri renounces God and vows to take revenge on him by destroying Mozart.

Mozart's work is ahead of its time, and he struggles to find employment in Vienna. He spends himself into debt, alarming his wife Constanze. Salieri and Mozart bond over their shared contempt for Emperor Joseph's lack of taste, but Mozart is unimpressed by Salieri's populist work, which causes Salieri great pain.

Mozart boldly adapts the subversive play The Marriage of Figaro into a comedic opera. Salieri rejoices, thinking Mozart's career is ruined, but Mozart stuns Salieri by convincing the Emperor to approve the project. The Emperor, however, finds the opera boring, and it is soon canceled. Eventually, Mozart's father, Leopold, dies. In response to criticisms and his grief, Mozart composes Don Giovanni, a dark, serious opera. Salieri is entranced but vindictively gets that opera canceled, too. Renouncing Vienna's artistic establishment, Mozart agrees to write The Magic Flute for a commoners' theater against Constanze's wishes.

After watching Don Giovanni five times, Salieri realizes that the dead commander who accuses Giovanni of sin represents Mozart's inferiority complex towards his father. Posing as an anonymous patron, in a costume Leopold had worn to a masquerade ball, Salieri persuades the unstable and debt-ridden Mozart to accept a commission for a Requiem Mass. Salieri plans to kill Mozart, claim the Requiem as his own, and premiere it at Mozart's funeral, forcing God to listen as Salieri is acclaimed. Mozart overworks himself, juggling The Magic Flute and the Requiem. Constanze, who wants him to focus on the Requiem but fears his erratic behavior, leaves with their son Karl. Although The Magic Flute is a success, Mozart collapses from exhaustion before he can finish conducting the opera.

Desperate to complete his plan but also desperate for more of Mozart's heavenly music, Salieri begs the bedridden Mozart to keep writing the Requiem. He takes dictation from Mozart throughout the night, during which he comes to terms with Mozart's superior talent. Mozart thanks Salieri for his friendship, and Salieri admits that Mozart is the greatest composer he knows.

Constanze returns and attempts to kick Salieri out of the apartment, locking the Requiem away before he can steal it. As Salieri protests, they are shocked to discover that Mozart has died from exhaustion. Due to his debts, he is buried in a pauper's grave.

Back in 1823, Vogler is too shaken to absolve Salieri, who surmises that God would rather destroy his beloved Mozart than allow Salieri to share in Mozart's glory. As Salieri is wheeled down a hallway, he proclaims himself the patron saint of mediocrities. He absolves the asylum's other patients of their inadequacies as Mozart's laughter rings in the air.