City Lights

Considered by many as one of the greatest films of all time, this 1931 romantic comedy from Charlie Chaplin follows the high-jinks of his beloved “Tramp” character as he woos a blind flower peddler. Funny, moving and featuring Chaplin’s first and only original musical score, City Lights is as entertaining and affecting today as it was in its wildly successful Golden Age debut.  

Metropolis

This 1927 German expressionist blockbuster directed by Fritz Lang was one of the first, feature-length science fiction films ever made. Set in the dystopian, futuristic city of Metropolis, it depicts a starkly divided society in which the rich and powerful literally live in high towers while a lowly working class toils away on monstrous machinery beneath ground. When the city’s leader and his diabolical associate release a feminized robot into the city to prevent an uprising, chaos erupts and their invention instead threatens to disrupt the social order and turn the population against them. Visual and thematic echoes of Lang’s masterpiece abound in contemporary films from Star Wars to Ex-Machina.