Amadeus director's cut or theatrical? Critics say the extra 20 minutes slow it down — here's which to watch

Miloš Forman's Amadeus won eight Oscars, including Best Picture, in 1985. Then, in 2002, a director's cut with about 20 extra minutes replaced the theatrical version on home video, and the shorter cut more or less vanished. Warner Bros. brought it back in 4K in February 2025, and now that both versions are easy to find, there's a real choice to make.

Two versions, one Best Picture

The theatrical cut runs about two hours and 40 minutes. The director's cut runs three hours. When the longer version came out, the producers modified the original film negative to include the new footage, Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells noted, and the 4K release was the first time this century the theatrical cut was available on home video.

Forman's own position was never a hard no on either version.

In 2002, he called the original edit "a mutual decision" with the studio, made so as not to push the audience's patience too far, the A.V. Club noted. On the director's cut commentary, he said he'd cut material only for time, because Warner Bros. wouldn't release a three-hour film.

What the director's cut adds

Most of the 20 minutes are small trims put back. The bigger additions:

• Constanze and Salieri: An extra scene in which Constanze tries to get Salieri to recommend Mozart for a job. The longer cut also adds a moment with nudity that some critics argue makes Salieri look excessively lecherous.
• Mozart the tutor: A sequence showing Mozart's disastrous stint as a music tutor.
• Katerina Cavalieri: A short bit showing the singer's reaction to Mozart's engagement.
• More Salieri: A longer conversation between the old Salieri and Father Vogler, plus a dinner with the Emperor where Salieri trashes Mozart.
• Schlumberg: A late scene of a drunk Mozart paying another visit to Schlumberg.

The tutor scene is the one even skeptics like. It shows how badly Mozart needed money and sets up a later exchange with his father, DVD Movie Guide's Colin Jacobson wrote.

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What the critics say

The case against the long cut is mostly about rhythm. Jacobson said the Constanze and engagement scenes "altered the natural flow of the film" and hurt the scenes that come right after them. Tasha Robinson, writing for the A.V. Club in 2013, said the longer version breaks up the film's flow "with lengthy, talky interludes."

"I prefer the original theatrical cut."

— Colin Jacobson, DVD Movie Guide

Not everyone agrees. DVD Exotica's John W. McKelvey argued the extra length doesn't actually hurt the pacing, and that the Constanze scene reflects a key moment from Peter Shaffer's stage play. The Digital Bits' Bill Hunt called the additions interesting but largely redundant, and said it was "long past time" the original cut got its due.

Which one to watch

Watch the theatrical cut first. It's the version that won Best Picture, it's the one most of these critics prefer, and Warner's 4K restoration was made for it. If you love the film after that, the director's cut is worth a second watch for the tutor scene and the extra Salieri material.

The Emperor's big note on Mozart's opera was "too many notes." Twenty years of home video viewers got the version with too many scenes.

The long cut is still out there for the completists. The short one is the version the critics recommend starting with.

Previously we wrote: Blood Simple director's cut differences: what the Coens cut and who the man introducing it really is