Metropolis (1927)

Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction silent film directed by Fritz Lang. Set in a futuristic urban dystopia, it follows Freder, the son of the city's master, who discovers the brutal conditions in which the workers who maintain the city live below ground. When he falls in love with the saintly Maria, a mediator between the classes, a robot duplicate of her is created to incite the workers to destruction.

Considered one of the greatest and most influential science fiction films ever made, Metropolis was a financial disaster on release. Much of the original footage was cut, and the film was long considered partially lost — until a nearly complete print was discovered in a Buenos Aires film museum in 2008. The film is listed by UNESCO on the Memory of the World Register. It is in the public domain.

Watch

Video source: Internet Archive — Metropolis_1927 · Public domain

Chapters

Click any timestamp to jump to that point in the film.

1. 00:00 The workers descend to the underground city; Freder watches from above
2. 08:00 Freder descends to the workers' city and meets Maria
3. 20:00 Joh Fredersen commissions the inventor Rotwang to create a robot in Maria's likeness
4. 40:00 The false Maria incites the workers to riot; the machines are destroyed
5. 60:00 The workers' city floods; the real Maria and Freder save the children
6. 80:00 Rotwang confronts Maria on the cathedral roof; the mediator's role fulfilled

References

1. Eisner, Lotte H. The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema. University of California Press, 1994.
2. Minden, Michael, and Holger Bachmann, eds. Fritz Lang's Metropolis: Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear. Camden House, 2000.