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Metropolis (1927)

tomatometer

99

Average Rating: 9/10
Reviews Counted: 104
Fresh: 103 | Rotten: 1

A visually awe-inspiring science fiction classic from the silent era.

100

Average Rating: 8.8/10
Critic Reviews: 23
Fresh: 23 | Rotten: 0

A visually awe-inspiring science fiction classic from the silent era.

audience

90

liked it
Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 55,001

My Rating

Movie Info

The biggest-budgeted movie ever produced at Germany's UFA, Fritz Lang's gargantuan Metropolis consumed resources that would have yielded upwards of 20 conventional features, more than half the studio's entire annual production budget. And if it didn't make a profit at the time -- indeed, it nearly bankrupted the studio -- the film added an indelible array of images and ideas to cinema, and has endured across the many decades since its release. Metropolis had many sources of inspiration,

Feb 18, 2003

$0.5M

Paramount Pictures

Cast

All Critics (106) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (107) | Rotten (1) | DVD (20)

Kino's The Complete Metropolis contains nearly a hundred instances of restored footage, ranging from brief reaction shots to entire sequences.

July 22, 2010 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

This movie is certifiably nuts and naive in many ways, but it is so exciting.

June 21, 2010 Full Review Source: At the Movies | Comment
At the Movies
Top Critic IconTop Critic

There's no denying either the influence of Lang's vision -- so much of what he did in this film lives on that we take it as cultural assumption -- or the still valid energy of his storytelling.

June 11, 2010 Full Review Source: Detroit News | Comment
Detroit News
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Here's a coincidence: The first must-see movie of 2010 is also the must-see movie of 1927. The difference is that you can actually see it now. Or most of it.

June 3, 2010 Full Review Source: Boston Globe | Comment (1)
Boston Globe
Top Critic IconTop Critic

To see the film as the director intended, on the big screen with an original score recorded by a 60-piece orchestra, greatly enhances the reputation of a film already considered one of the icons of the silent era.

May 13, 2010 Full Review Source: Los Angeles Times | Comment
Los Angeles Times
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The extended version -- the additional footage is easy to spot because it's rather worn and a slightly different size -- provides more of the extraordinary performance by the teenage Helm.

May 7, 2010 Full Review Source: New York Post | Comment
New York Post
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Legendary silent sci-fi masterpiece has semi-nudity, riots.

December 6, 2011 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

A perfect gateway drug for old movies.

July 6, 2011 Full Review Source: Antagony & Ecstasy | Comment
Antagony & Ecstasy

Fritz Lang's 1927 feature if a truly seminal epic in every sense of the term.

June 17, 2011 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com | Comment

A miraculous feat of movie love, this near-complete restoration of Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece is nothing if not the non-Criterion Blu-ray release of the year.

December 6, 2010 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

Devoted film- and music-lovers alike will enjoy the latest reconstruction (images and sound) of Fritz Lang's truly marvellous tale of mediation over violence.

November 27, 2010 Full Review Source: JWR | Comment

Lang's visionary visual creation remains impressive almost 80 years later...

November 18, 2010 Full Review Source: Parallax View | Comment
Parallax View

Every dystopian vision owes a debt of gratitude to Metropolis.

September 13, 2010 Full Review Source: Daily Express | Comment
Daily Express

Oh, it's wacky. But the visuals are unlike anything we've ever experienced. For the film aficionado, it's a cinematic must-see.

September 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Indie Movies Online | Comment
Indie Movies Online

Among the most famous and influential silent films ever made, Metropolis has lost none of its ability to inspire awe and provoke debate.

September 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Radio Times | Comment
Radio Times

A luminous and resplendent visual masterpiece yoked to a puerile and embarrassingly trite plot.

September 9, 2010 Full Review Source: Total Film | Comment
Total Film

Master cinematographer Karl Freund fills the screen with an array of stylized shadows, oblique camera angles, geometric images, and nightmarish labyrinths.

August 1, 2010 Full Review Source: Slant Magazine | Comment
Slant Magazine

The visionary qualities of the visual creation become more impressive with each restoration, and the narrative more interesting.

July 25, 2010 Full Review Source: Parallax View | Comment
Parallax View

A fully realized work of art whose influence on science fiction, set design and symbolism can scarcely be put into words.

July 23, 2010 Full Review Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch | Comment
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for Metropolis

One of the first major science fiction films, and one of the most expensive films made at the time, Fritz Lang's dystopian future hits all the right notes about social class, the importance of conformity, monetary extortion, and the future fate of political tumult. The scope for this film is just gigantic and

January 27, 2012
Matthew Roe
Matthew Roe

Super Reviewer

I love film myths. I love German cinema (if it is subtitled). I love classic silent films. So, in that sense, I love Fritz Lang's epic masterpiece Metropolis. From the stand point of a person that watches countless films in order to review them, I would say that this has to be, all around, one of the most well made and

December 17, 2011
Zach Brehany

Super Reviewer

    1. Maria/Robot: The mediator of the head and the hands must be the heart.
    – Submitted by Prana Independent F (10 months ago)

Latest News for Metropolis

August 24, 2011:
Giorgia Moroder's Metropolis Heads to Theaters
The 1984 film's arrival on Blu-ray will be celebrated with a 20-city theatrical run.

April 23, 2010:
Restoring Fritz Lang's Metropolis
After 80 years, nearly half an hour of lost footage from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" has turned up --...

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Foreign Titles

  • Metropolis (1927) (UK)
  • Metropolis (1927) (CA)
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