7. Amadeus - 1984
Call it a weak field and in the 1980s there were plenty of them but Milos Forman's Amadeus was a masterpiece. It was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won eight of them including, directing, lead actor for F. Murray Abraham, screenplay and of course, Best Picture. Amadeus tells the story of Antonio Salieri who, at the opening of the film, has attempted suicide because of his guilt from purportedly killing Mozart over thirty years prior. He is placed in an asylum where his story is told. We are treated to a film of sumptuous beauty and filled with the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Abraham's Salieri is a man driven by jealousy which leads to a nonsensical level of hatred for Mozart. He devises a plan to kill the composer, which he never truly reveals, and hires Mozart to compose a requiem mass. This, of course, leads to the iconic Requiem Mass in D Minor. In the end, the joke is on Salieri as Mozart was not killed by his hand he realizes that he has been left behind to live a life of mediocrity. Nothing, absolutely nothing else came close this year.