Fritz Lang’s 1927 masterpiece Metropolis must be the most restored and re-edited film in cinema history. The reason for this isn’t just because it’s a classic, but because almost from the day it was released it was chopped into multiple forms. The initial premiere version is said to have run 3 1/2 hours, but that was considered lost, with only severely hacked (down to less than 90 minutes) version available for many years.
Since then much of the extra footage has been rediscovered, with the most recent versions running around 150 minutes, which was about the length it ran during its initial cinema run. However now 25 minutes of extra lost footage has been found and reinserted into the 2002 restoration. Take a look below for the trailer for this new version, called ‘The Complete Metropolis’ (even though many say there was originally even more footage that yet to be rediscovered and be be lost forever).