Metropolis is a huge ants' nest of a city, conceived when skyscrapers were a new thing and it looked as if the City of the Future really might consist of nothing else. The skyscrapers all extend as far below the ground as they tower above it. Above ground live the Heads, the intellectual ruling class. Below live the Hands, the workers. (That's right: this is a City of Metaphors.) One day, John (Alfred Abel), son of the head Head, is enchanted by a mysterious woman (the woman is Heart got it? Head, Hands, Heart...), whom he follows to the lower depths. And the lower depths are astounding. Fritz Lang's sets are HUGE, and you'd be surprised how little the special effects and the art direction have dated in 75 years Lang's city is much less risible than the "futuristic" spacecraft of 1950s sci-fi, for instance. Metropolis remained the stunning science fiction epic for 41 years, until Kubrick's 2001, and it's still a film you can't afford to miss.