About the Movie
In the shining city of Metropolis, the sons of the elite live in pleasure gardens atop towers, while far below, an army of workers tends the great machines in ten-hour shifts, marching in exhausted unison. Freder, the master’s son, glimpses this hidden world through Maria, a saintly young woman who preaches peace to the workers — and his father, Joh Fredersen, answers her influence with a machine: a robot given Maria’s face, built to discredit her and control the men below.
Fritz Lang’s silent epic, written with Thea von Harbou, was the most expensive film ever made in its day, employing tens of thousands of extras and inventing visual effects as it went. Long seen only in cut versions, it was restored to near its original length after a complete print surfaced in Buenos Aires in 2008 — the version linked below runs the full 2 hours 29 minutes.
Why This Movie Matters to Sci-Fi
Quite simply, this is where screen science fiction begins. The city of the future — every skyline from Blade Runner to The Fifth Element — was designed here first, and the robot Maria became the template for a century of screen androids, C-3PO included. Its story of technology, labor and a heart to mediate between head and hands has lost none of its force in almost a hundred years. If you watch one silent film, make it this one.
Where to Watch
Watch the full film FREE on YouTube — the complete restored version on the VinFlix classic-film channel. (This public-domain landmark is also rentable as The Complete Metropolis on YouTube Movies.)
