In present day Montreal, a famous Nicolo Bussotti violin, known as "the red violin," is being auctioned off. During the auction, we flash back to the creation of the violin in 17th century Italy, and follow the violin as it makes its way through an 18th century Austrian monastery, a violinist in 19th century Oxford, China during the Cultural Revolution, and back to Montreal, where a collector tries to establish the identity and the secrets of "the red violin."

The Red Violin (French: Le Violon rouge, German: Die Rote Violine, Italian: Il Violino Rosso, Chinese: 红提琴), is a Canadian film released on November 13, 1998 (in the USA on June 11, 1999). The film received an Academy Award for the Best Original Score (John Corigliano), 8 Genie Awards, 9 Jutra Awards, a Golden Reel Award (for sound editing), and a Best Artistic Contribution Award from the Tokyo International Film Festival. The film is notable in that dialogue is spoken in the language appropriate to each setting, with subtitles. It was the first film since Apocalypse Now (1979) to have dialogue in more than four languages (in this case five): Italian, German, French, Mandarin and English. While the film's title actually contains words in all five languages, it is generally known by either the English or the French portions.