1. Amadeus (1984)
If you’ve ever taken piano lessons, you’re familiar—painfully perhaps—with the subject of this film. Amadeus takes us back to the 1700s for the life and times of legendary classical composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The film takes some liberties with the truth, imagining a fictional rivalry between the piano prodigy and an Italian composer, through whom the story is told. Ultimately, however, the movie pieces together a portrait of Mozart’s life, character and death through historical and factual accounts.