Metropolis (1927)

Set in the future, the privileged classes live above the ground in a huge metropolis of skyscrapers while the workers reside in an underground city. When the son (Gustav Frohlich) of the brain and ruler (Alfred Abel) of Metropolis becomes entranced with a young woman (Brigitte Helm) of the working class, he follows her down to the workers city and becomes horrified at what he sees and determined to change it. Fritz Lang's science fiction epic is legendary in its reputation and justifiably so. Not only is it one of the most influential films ever made, it remains a landmark in the science fiction genre. The art direction by Otto Hunte, Erich Kettelhut and Karl Vollbrecht is breathtaking while the cinematography by Karl Freund, Gunther Rittau and Walter Ruttman is as fresh as if it were filmed yesterday. The flooding and destruction of the workers' city sequence is stunning and the equal (if not superior) to any disaster flick from the 1970s. It's an ambitious epic that could have been Lang's folly (indeed contemporary reviews were mixed) but he succeeded in every way. With Brigitte Helm playing two roles: the saintly Maria who attempts to sooth the workers to wait for a mediator instead of rebellion and the false Maria, an evil clone who usurps the real Maria to inflame the workers to rebellion. The rich original 1927 underscore is by Gottfried Huppertz.