Fritz Lang

Lang studied architecture and painting in Vienna before turning to filmmaking after serving in the Austrian army during World War I, where he was wounded multiple times and reportedly began writing scripts while recovering in military hospitals.

The Austrian-born titan of German Expressionism built a working city from nothing to tell a story about class war between the people who run it and the people who keep it running. He fled Germany in the 1930s after being reportedly offered control of the Nazi film industry by Joseph Goebbels, eventually rebuilding a substantial career in Hollywood over the following decades.

Metropolis's production was so vast and expensive that it nearly bankrupted its studio, and much of the film was considered lost for decades before later restorations recovered most of its original footage from prints found around the world, culminating in a nearly complete version rediscovered in Argentina.