This was the only silent film that made the cut for my original 365. Since I wrote that list chronologically it was also my first ever blog post. I admit that this post took me a while, because I wanted to revisit the epic. Since my 2010 blog, it has been remastered and missing scenes have been added that make the film as close as it has ever been to Fritz Lang's vision from nearly 100 years ago. You too can watch it for free on youtube, and I strongly urge you to do so. I know we have lost many movies of this generation, but of the ones I have seen, Metropolis is simply head and shoulders above the rest. It is beautiful, well-acted, ground-breaking, and includes a timely moral that still hits hard today. I can't imagine how it must have felt to see this movie in a crowded pre-depression theater. Metropolis isn't great because it was the prototype science fiction epic (which it was), it isn't great because the filmmakers soared beyond their technological limitations (which they did), and it isn't great because Lang used the medium to try to warn the world of the coming dangers of fascism (which he did). Metropolis is great because it is a masterpiece. Full stop. It holds up against movies from every generation and deserves to be in the conversation for greatest movie of all time.
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