Metropolis was one of the most expensive movies made to that time. Its 5,000,000 Marks price tag almost put UFA into bankruptcy. Adjusted for inflation, its cost today would be more than $200 million.

"...quite the silliest film..." - H.G. Wells, Time

"Nothing like Metropolis, the ambitious UFA production that has created wide international comment, has been seen on the screen. It, therefore, stands alone, in some respects, as a remarkable achievement. It is a technical marvel with feet of clay, a picture as soulless as the manufactured woman of its story. Its scenes bristle with cinematic imagination, with hordes of men and women and astounding stage settings. It is hardly a film to be judged by its narrative, for despite the fantastic nature of the story, it is, on the whole, unconvincing, lacking in suspense and at times aggressively theatric." -- Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times

"What is this? This is not just Metropolis; it is not just German film. It is...all of official Germany as we know it and experience it every day on our own hides." - Hans Siemsen, Die Weltbuhne

"The movie has a plot that defies common sense, but its very discontinuity is a strength. It makes Metropolis hallucinatory -- a nightmare without the reassurance of a steadying story line. Few films have ever been more visually exhilarating." -- Roger Ebert, Chicago Tribune "Building on earlier science fiction and endlessly influential on later works, Lang's film is a mammoth marvel, fusing modernism and expressionism, art deco and Biblical spectacle, Wagnerian bombast, sentimental Marxism and religiose militarianism. Sit close to a big screen and submit to the machine." -- Ben Walters, Time Out

"One of the last examples of the imaginative -- but often monstrous -- grandeur of the Golden Period of the German film, Metropolis is a spectacular example of Expressionist design (grouped human beings are used architecturally), with moments of almost incredible beauty and power (the visionary sequence about the Tower of Babel), absurd ineptitudes (the lovesick hero in his preposterous knickerbockers), and oddities that defy analysis (the robot vamp's bizarre, lewd wink). It's a wonderful, stupefying folly." -- Pauline Kael, 5,001 Nights at the Movies

AWARDS & HONORS

In the British Film Institute's 2012 poll to name the greatest movies ever made, Metropolis came in 35th.

Giorgio Morodor's 1984 score for Metropolis was nominated for the Razzie for Worst Musical Score, and his collaboration with Freddie Mercury on the song "Love Kills" was nominated for Worst Original Song. It lost to Bolero (1984) in the former category and Dolly Parton's "Drinkenstein" from Rhinestone (1984) in the latter.

The film's 2001 restoration won a special award from the New York Film Critics Circle.

By Frank Miller