Release calendarTop 250 moviesMost popular moviesBrowse movies by genreTop box officeShowtimes & ticketsMovie newsIndia movie spotlight
    What's on TV & streamingTop 250 TV showsMost popular TV showsBrowse TV shows by genreTV news
    What to watchLatest trailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb SpotlightFamily entertainment guideIMDb Podcasts
    EmmysSuperheroes GuideSan Diego Comic-ConSummer Watch GuideBest Of 2025 So FarDisability Pride MonthSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll events
    Born todayMost popular celebsCelebrity news
    Help centerContributor zonePolls
For industry professionals
  • Language
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
8 suggestions available
Watchlist
Sign in
Sign in
New customer? Create account
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
Use app
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
  • FAQ
IMDbPro

Metropolis

  • 1927
  • Not Rated
  • 2h 33m
IMDb RATING
8.3/10
196K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
2,026
12
Brigitte Helm in Metropolis (1927)
Metropolis Trailer
Play trailer2:01
2 Videos
99+ Photos
Dystopian Sci-FiEpicSci-Fi EpicSteampunkDramaSci-Fi

In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a... Read allIn a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.In a futuristic city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city's mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to mediate their differences.

  • Director
    • Fritz Lang
  • Writers
    • Thea von Harbou
    • Fritz Lang
  • Stars
    • Brigitte Helm
    • Alfred Abel
    • Gustav Fröhlich
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    8.3/10
    196K
    YOUR RATING
    POPULARITY
    2,026
    12
    • Director
      • Fritz Lang
    • Writers
      • Thea von Harbou
      • Fritz Lang
    • Stars
      • Brigitte Helm
      • Alfred Abel
      • Gustav Fröhlich
    • 593User reviews
    • 224Critic reviews
    • 98Metascore
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • Top rated movie #120
    • Awards
      • 7 wins & 6 nominations total

    Videos2

    Metropolis
    Trailer 2:01
    Metropolis
    'The Platform' & Future Films From the IMDb Top 250
    Clip 4:04
    'The Platform' & Future Films From the IMDb Top 250
    'The Platform' & Future Films From the IMDb Top 250
    Clip 4:04
    'The Platform' & Future Films From the IMDb Top 250

    Photos181

    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    View Poster
    + 175
    View Poster

    Top cast33

    Edit
    Brigitte Helm
    Brigitte Helm
    • Maria…
    Alfred Abel
    Alfred Abel
    • Johann (Joh) Fredersen
    Gustav Fröhlich
    Gustav Fröhlich
    • Freder Fredersen - Joh Fredersens Sohn
    Rudolf Klein-Rogge
    Rudolf Klein-Rogge
    • Erfinder C.A. Rotwang…
    Fritz Rasp
    Fritz Rasp
    • Der Schmale…
    Theodor Loos
    Theodor Loos
    • Josaphat…
    Erwin Biswanger
    • 11811 - Georgy
    Heinrich George
    Heinrich George
    • Grot -Wärter der Herzmaschine…
    Fritz Alberti
    Fritz Alberti
    • Schöpferischer Mensch
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Grete Berger
    Grete Berger
    • Arbeiterin
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Olly Boeheim
    • Arbeiterin
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Max Dietze
    • Arbeiter
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Ellen Frey
    • Arbeiterin
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Beatrice Garga
    • Frau der ewigen Gärten
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Heinrich Gotho
    Heinrich Gotho
    • Zermonienmeister
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Dolly Grey
    Dolly Grey
    • Arbeiterin
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Anny Hintze
    • Frau der ewigen Gärten
    • (uncredited)
    • …
    Gottfried Huppertz
    • Man Playing Violin
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Fritz Lang
    • Writers
      • Thea von Harbou
      • Fritz Lang
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews593

    8.3195.7K
    1
    2
    3
    4
    5
    6
    7
    8
    9
    10

    Summary

    Reviewers say 'Metropolis' is a groundbreaking science fiction film that delves into class struggle, technological dangers, and social harmony. Its innovative visual style, special effects, and set design have inspired films like 'Blade Runner' and 'Star Wars'. The dystopian city depiction and commentary on labor and consumerism remain impactful. Celebrated for its cinematography, editing, and symbolism, 'Metropolis' stands as a key work of German expressionism, though some find its pacing and narrative dated.
    AI-generated from the text of user reviews

    Featured reviews

    9ignatz928

    Watch the Kino DVD!

    Technically speaking, I have seen this Fritz Lang silent sci-fi before, but this was the first time I saw it in any shape by which I could fairly evaluate it. I had previously watched Metropolis on a public domain VHS from the 80s. The print was terribly scratched and while there were a few memorable images, the story was so incoherent that their context was usually unclear. Though this was clearly not the best way to see Metropolis, I was still left with an impression of this supposed classic as a dusty museum piece that was praised by critics because they were expected to like it. So finally seeing a restored and expanded copy was as much as a revelation as seeing Once Upon a Time in the West letter boxed in how it led me to reevaluate my opinion of the movie. The movie is a strange mixture of political speculation political parable, apocalyptic fantasy, and religious allegory. It depicts a futuristic city that is divided between the wretched workers, who toil in the depths tending the machines, and the upper classes, who dwell in luxury up in the skyscrapers. The hero, the idle, pampered son of the city's supervisor Joh Fredersen, changes his ways and becomes concerned with the plight of the lower classes after catching a glimpse of Maria, the Madonna of the workers. His father, meanwhile, is plotting to thwart Maria with the help of the mad scientist Rotwang, who has discovered how to create robot replicas of human beings. One of the most surprising things about watching this version is just how much I didn't see. In addition to restoring scenes to the film, the DVD also includes inter titles to explain pieces of the plot that cannot be found in any version. With these changes, the story becomes much clearer, particularly the machinations of Rotwang and the master of Metropolis. Perhaps most importantly, a whole new subplot is added involving the hero's dead mother Hel, who was loved by both his father and Rotwang. With this clarification of the back-story, the close but adversarial relationship between Rotwang and Fredersen becomes much clearer. In some ways it recalls the family back-story of the Star Wars movies. Of course, the real strength of Metropolis isn't the story, which is pretty silly and probably wouldn't have worked in anything but a silent film, but its amazing visuals, which in their scale and ambitiousness look forward to 2001 and Blade Runner. Actually, though in most respects silent films now look primitive, one area in which they have the edge over modern film-making is in their frequently grandiose production design. Metropolis employs huge sets to show the hellish factories of the subterranean world. The models of the city's towering skyscrapers are also surprisingly convincing for a 1920s film. Even beyond the expansive production design and (for the time) special effects, Lang's visuals are all consistently inventive. The robot Maria provides some of the movie's most iconic images, including her transformation into a human being. In a later scene, she performs for upper-class men in a nightclub, and as she performs a striptease that in 1920s Germany was apparently seen as very decadent, the screen is filled with wet staring eyeballs. A sign of Lang's visual lavishness, and the studio's, that he doesn't hesitate to throw in lavish dream and hallucination sequences to drive home a point or illustrate a character's state of mind. For instance, when the hero first enters the subterranean city and sees rows upon rows of workers toiling on huge machines, he imagines the furnace transforming into a monstrous idol's head into which the workers are being sacrificed. At another point, while he's sick in bed he imagines statues of the Seven Deadly Sins coming to life and advancing out from a wall in a cathedral. When Maria preaches her message of peace and understanding to the workers, she tells them the story of the Tower of Babel of a management vs. labor parable, and Lang gives us spectacular images of the tower's construction and fall. In a sound film many of these scenes would have seemed redundant and over-literal, but they're what silent cinema does best -tell a story without the advantage- or obstacle- of dialogue. The story is a little slow to start, but once it picks up Metropolis becomes one of the most directly involving silent films that I've seen. In addition to being a pioneering example of the cinematic possibilities of science fiction, Metropolis also has to be one of the earliest disaster films, as the workers riot and sabotage the machines, endangering the entire city. Lang creates a sense of rising fury and nihilism in the last hour that in a strange way reminded me of what was going to happen to Germany in less than 20 years.
    9Xstal

    The Foundation of Dystopian Science Fiction...

    Absolutely crammed full of future references to all of your favourite science fiction feature films, series, books, comics and video games. There's also quite a lot rooted in the current world of science non-fiction with the age of automation and robots concurrently being consumed by A.I. and Machine Learning. You could squeeze gene editing in as well if you have the imagination.

    I saw a clean restored version and spent a lot of time wishing I was consuming the experience in a cinema as a result. Ambitious, visionary and epic in its making - seldom can any film lay claim to having such huge influence. It must have been quite breathtaking for the paying public of the day, in their time away from the grindstone, to encounter such an alien and yet metaphorically familiar world, as the one they encountered here.
    8ACitizenCalledKane

    Highly influential and, dare I say, prophetic?

    Fritz Lang's Metropolis is the first true masterpiece of science fiction in film. You can see it's influence in films such as Star Wars, The Matrix, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Blade Runner, and countless others. Despite the fact that parts of the film are no longer available, the efforts to reconstruct the original film from its remains are valiant enough to provide enough to make the story clear. The special effects were far ahead of their time and the set designs were, in some cases, phenomenal. I can see where some people may not enjoy this movie. It is hard for some to really appreciate a movie that is 77 years old, because a lot has happened in film since then. Yet, if you look at the basic elements of this movie - its story, characters, artwork, cinematography, etc., I believe this movie has just as much to offer now as it must have in the late 1920's. Also, take into consideration the asthetics of German expressionist film when viewing this. The performances and set designs are going to be over the top. That was part of the style. Metropolis may not be for everyone, but, for those willing to read between the lines, this film still has a lot to offer!
    8Coventry

    So old…and yet so futuristic!

    Fritz Lang's groundbreaking landmark remains one of the biggest mysteries in the world of cinema. How can a movie that'll soon turn 80 years old still look so disturbingly futuristic?? The screenplay by Thea Von Harbou is still very haunting and courageously assails social issues that are of all ages. The world has been divided into two main categories: thinkers & workers! If you belong to the first category, you can lead a life of luxury above ground but if you're a worker, your life isn't worth a penny, and you're doomed to perilous labor underground. The further expansions and intrigues in the screenplay are too astonishing to spoil, so I strongly advise that you check out the film yourself. It's essential viewing, anyway! "Metropolis" is a very demanding film-experience and definitely not always entertaining. But, as it is often the case with silent-cinema classics, the respect and admiration you'll develop during watching it will widely excel the enjoyment-aspect. Fritz' brutal visual style still looks innovative and few directors since were able to re-create a similarly nightmarish composition of horizontal and vertical lines. Many supposedly 'restored' versions have been released over the years (in 1984 and 2002, for example) but the 1926-version is still the finest in my opinion, even though that one already isn't as detailed and punctual as Lang intended it. "Metropolis" perhaps is THE most important and influential movie ever made. "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Star Wars" and "Blade Runner" owe their existence (or at least their power) to it.
    10Bockharn

    Restored Kino DVD changed my view of this film.

    I doubt that I'd ever seen anything resembling a "complete" version of METROPOLIS before, though certain of its scenes were familiar to me, if only as used and abused in such films as Diane Keaton's HEAVEN (1987). In any case, whatever I had seen before had nothing like the clarity and beauty of the Kino restoration. I expected to be distracted by the restoration's technique of concise written descriptions of missing sequences, but the narrative coherence that these provided was definitely worth it. As "exaggerated" as the style of acting seems by contemporary standards, some performances, such as the Master of the city, are amazingly nuanced and layered, and Brigitte Helm is stunning as both Maria and her evil clone. The meticulous design of the film, the unerring camera placement and Lang's muscular choreography of the crowd scenes are breathtaking. I'd thought of METROPOLIS as a curiosity ("important" = "dull") but now I've come to appreciate it as the seminal work it has always been.

    More like this

    Bicycle Thieves
    8.2
    Bicycle Thieves
    M
    8.3
    M
    The Sting
    8.2
    The Sting
    Snatch
    8.2
    Snatch
    Downfall
    8.2
    Downfall
    Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
    8.1
    Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
    L.A. Confidential
    8.2
    L.A. Confidential
    Tokyo Story
    8.1
    Tokyo Story
    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    8.2
    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
    Metropolis
    Metropolis
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    8.3
    To Kill a Mockingbird
    The Third Man
    8.1
    The Third Man

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Unemployment and inflation were so bad in Germany at the time that the producers had no trouble finding 500 children to film the flooding sequences.
    • Goofs
      When Freder and Josaphat are climbing down into the miner's city, Freder is barefoot. When they are taking the children up the stairs, he has shoes again.
    • Quotes

      Maria: HEAD and HANDS need a mediator. THE MEDIATOR BETWEEN HEAD AND HANDS MUST BE THE HEART!

      Worker #1: But where is our mediator, Maria - ?

      Maria: Wait for him! He will surely come!

      Worker #2: We will wait, Maria...! But not much longer - - !

    • Crazy credits
      Restoration based on the version in the Filmmuseum Munich and material preserved in the Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv
    • Alternate versions
      A version restored by the German Democratic Republic in the eighties runs 115 minutes (still shown on German TV sometimes).
    • Connections
      Edited into Il volo (1975)

    Top picks

    Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations
    Sign in

    FAQ21

    • How long is Metropolis?Powered by Alexa
    • Is "Metropolis" based on a book?
    • How did they shoot the rings around the machine when it was transforming into the guise of Maria?
    • What are the differences between the 2001 Restoration and the 2010 Restoration?

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • March 13, 1927 (United States)
    • Country of origin
      • Germany
    • Official site
      • Official North American site for 2002 restoration
    • Languages
      • German
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Metrópolis
    • Filming locations
      • Berlin, Germany
    • Production company
      • Universum Film (UFA)
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • DEM 6,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $1,236,166
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $19,386
      • Jul 14, 2002
    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,351,009
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 33 minutes
    • Sound mix
      • Silent(original release)
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.33 : 1

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    Brigitte Helm in Metropolis (1927)
    Top Gap
    What is the streaming release date of Metropolis (1927) in Australia?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Production art
    Photos
    Hollywood Power Couples
    See the gallery
    Production art
    List
    July 2025 TV and Streaming Premiere Dates
    See the list
    Poster
    List
    Most Anticipated Indian Movies: July-December 2025
    See the list

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    Sign in for more accessSign in for more access
    Follow IMDb on social
    Get the IMDb App
    For Android and iOS
    Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • License IMDb Data
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2025 by IMDb.com, Inc.