Metropolis (1927) in Color — Starring Gustav Fröhlich & Brigitte Helm

Metropolis (1927) — Buy This Classic in Color

Metropolis (1927) is Fritz Lang’s visionary German Expressionist masterpiece, a groundbreaking science fiction epic set in a futuristic city where the wealthy elite live in dazzling luxury in soaring towers while oppressed workers toil in nightmarish conditions deep underground, powering the machines that sustain the world above. Added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, this professionally colorized version brings electrifying new life to one of the most important and influential films ever made. Buy your colorized copy today for €15.00 and own this legendary classic movie in color.

Plot Summary

In the towering, magnificent city of Metropolis — a breathtaking urban paradise of Art Deco skyscrapers, aerial highways, and pleasure gardens built on the suffering of an invisible underclass — the privileged, idealistic young Freder Fredersen lives in blissful ignorance of the horrors that power his comfortable existence until he encounters Maria, a beautiful, saintly young woman from the workers’ underground city who appears in the Eternal Gardens surrounded by ragged children, a vision from another world that shatters his illusions forever. Following her into the terrifying depths beneath the city, Freder witnesses for the first time the horrific, dehumanizing conditions in which thousands of exhausted, anonymous workers operate the massive, insatiable machines that power everything above — a vision so nightmarish, so overwhelming, that he hallucinates the great machine transforming into Moloch, the ancient god who devours human lives. Meanwhile, the brilliant, half-mad inventor Rotwang — consumed by grief for a woman he loved who chose Freder’s father instead — creates a robot in the saintly Maria’s exact physical image and programs it to infiltrate the workers and incite them to violent, self-destructive rebellion, serving the dark, Machiavellian purposes of Freder’s coldly calculating father Joh Fredersen, the undisputed Master of Metropolis. The classic movie builds to a spectacular, apocalyptic climax as the false, demonic Maria leads the workers in a frenzy of rage to destroy the very machines that keep their underground city habitable — flooding their own homes with their own children still inside — while the real Maria and the transformed Freder struggle desperately to save the workers’ children from drowning and to bridge the impossibly vast divide between the rulers and the ruled. Brigitte Helm delivers one of silent cinema’s most astonishing dual performances — ethereal and saintly as the real Maria, wickedly seductive and terrifyingly inhuman as the robot — in a role that remains one of the most technically and emotionally demanding in film history.

Cast & Crew

Director: Fritz Lang

Stars: Brigitte Helm, Gustav Fröhlich, Alfred Abel, Rudolf Klein-Rogge, Fritz Rasp, Theodor Loos, Heinrich George, Erwin Biswanger

Why Buy This Classic in Color?

This colorized version of Metropolis reveals Fritz Lang’s stunning, architecturally revolutionary visual world with breathtaking new intensity and immersive depth. The original black and white photography created one of cinema’s most iconic visual vocabularies, but the professionally colorized restoration transforms the experience on an entirely different level — revealing the gleaming silver and gold of the Art Deco towers piercing cloud-streaked skies, the hellish orange-red glow of the underground machine halls, the cool steel-blue of Rotwang’s laboratory during the robot’s electrifying creation sequence, the warm golden radiance surrounding the saintly Maria, and the consuming crimson flames of the apocalyptic climax — all rendered with extraordinary frame-by-frame precision. The visual contrast between the paradise above and the inferno below becomes overwhelmingly powerful in color. Now also available in colour.

Buy Metropolis in color today for just €15.00. Your DRM-free MP4 download is available for instant access.

Historical Significance

Metropolis is a classic film universally regarded as one of the greatest, most important, and most wildly influential films in the entire history of cinema — a work of such extraordinary visual imagination and thematic ambition that virtually every science fiction film made in the century since owes it a profound, acknowledged debt, from Blade Runner to Star Wars, from Dark City to The Matrix. Fritz Lang’s vision of a dystopian future city divided between the privileged few and the exploited masses resonates with even greater urgency in the twenty-first century than it did in 1927. Brigitte Helm’s dual performance as the angelic Maria and the demonic robot remains one of the most remarkable, most technically demanding achievements in silent cinema. The film was made at the legendary UFA studios in Germany at staggering expense, employed over 37,000 extras, and featured groundbreaking special effects — including the Schüfftan process — that advanced the art of filmmaking by decades. It was added to UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register in 2001, the first film to receive this honor. The restored colorized version allows modern audiences to watch this foundational masterpiece with the visual richness and color that reveal entirely new dimensions in its revolutionary, endlessly influential production design.

Technical Details

• Format: MP4 digital download
• Resolution: HD restored
• Colorized: Professionally colorized from original black and white (in Farbe)
• Audio: Original orchestral score restored
• Runtime: Approximately 153 minutes
• DRM-free: Yes — watch on any device
• Instant download: Available immediately after purchase
• Price: €15.00

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Movie-Specific Questions

Q: Is this a silent film?
A: Yes. Metropolis is a silent film with intertitles, accompanied by a magnificent restored orchestral score, presented in its professionally colorized version.

Q: Is this the colorized version of the full film?
A: Yes, this is the complete restored version of Metropolis at approximately 153 minutes, professionally colorized frame-by-frame.

Q: Why is Metropolis considered so important?
A: Metropolis is widely regarded as the foundation of science fiction cinema — its Art Deco cityscapes, its robot, its themes of class division and technology, and its spectacular visual effects have influenced virtually every sci-fi film made in the hundred years since, from Blade Runner to Star Wars.

Q: What is Brigitte Helm’s dual role?
A: Helm plays both the saintly, compassionate Maria who preaches peace to the workers, and the seductive, destructive robot copy created to manipulate and destroy them — a dual performance of extraordinary range that remains one of silent cinema’s greatest achievements.

Digital Download Questions

Q: What format is the download?
A: DRM-free MP4, compatible with virtually any device or media player.

Q: How much does it cost?
A: €15.00 for instant download. The colorization process ensures every scene looks stunning in color.

Q: Can I watch on multiple devices?
A: Absolutely. The file is DRM-free, so you can watch on your TV, tablet, phone, or computer.

Related Colorized Classics

• Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
• Lost Continent (1951)
• The Atomic Submarine (1959)
• Son of Frankenstein (1939)
• Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)