The Legend of 1900 (1998)
La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano
An epic story of a man who could do anything... except be ordinary
Keywords
The Legend of 1900 rating: IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic
IMDb8/10· 73K votes
Rotten Tomatoes58%
Metacritic58%
TMDb8.241/10· 2K votesWith 58% on Rotten Tomatoes, backed by 8/10 on IMDb and 58/100 on Metacritic, critical reception of this film has been mixed.
About The Legend of 1900
Musician Max Tooney goes to sell his prized Conn trumpet to a music shop, where he plays the instrument one last time. The shopkeeper recognises the song as one on a record matrix he found and asks who the piece is by. Tooney tells the story of an infant found abandoned in the first class dining room of the four-stacker ocean-liner SS Virginian on 1 January 1900. Danny Boodman, a coal-man from the boiler room, names the boy Danny Boodman T. D. Lemon 1900, after himself, the fruit crate the boy was found in, and the year, and raises him as his own.
Cast of The Legend of 1900
Tim Roth
as Danny Boodmann T.D. Lemon Nineteen Hundred '1900'
Pruitt Taylor Vince
as Max Tooney
Mélanie Thierry
as The Girl
Bill Nunn
as Danny Boodmann
Gabriele Lavia
as Farmer
Clarence Williams III
as Jelly Roll Morton
Peter Vaughan
as 'Pops', the Shopkeeper
- N
Niall O'Brien
as Harbor Master
Alberto Vazquez
as Mexican Stoker
- L
Luca De Luigi
as Neapolitan Stoker
Femi Elufowoju Jr.
as Black Stoker
- N
Nigel Fan
as Chinese Stoker
The Legend of 1900 facts
- Original title
- La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano
- Budget
- $9M
- Box office
- $21.1M
Ranked by the iRankMovies editorial teamUpdated August 2026MethodologyData sources
Audience opinions
What the audience liked
- •Tornatore crafts poetic meditation on artistic genius and passion
- •Piano prodigy protagonist creates musical narrative spectacle brilliantly
- •Romantic ocean liner setting establishes wistful nostalgic atmosphere beautifully
What the audience disliked
- •Excessive melodrama undermines emotional authenticity of narrative
- •Whimsical tone clashes with serious themes of isolation and mortality
Trailer
Where to watch The Legend of 1900(US)
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