Tonight Turner Classic Movies will present a groundbreaking achievement in filmmaking and film restoration with the world television premiere of the newly restored version of Fritz Lang’s 1927 science-fiction masterpiece Metropolis.

Metropolis will air at 8:00 PM (ET), one week before the release of DVD and Blu-ray Disc. TCM’s presentation will be followed at 11:00 PM (ET) by Metropolis Refound, a one-hour documentary about the discovery of new footage.

If you have free time tonight and cable television, I highly recommend that you tune in because Metropolis took director Fritz Lang two years to complete and soared past its original budget. Lang shot more than 1.3 million meters of footage and used 36,000 extras, including 750 children.

When Metropolis premiered in 1927, it was mildly successful, in part because its extreme length (204 minutes) made it difficult to screen. Distributors began using severely truncated versions, many of which mangled plot and character elements. Over time, only the edited versions remained in circulation, and Lang’s original vision was believed lost forever.

In 2008, a 16mm negative of the film, including 25 minutes – one fifth of the entire film – that had not been seen since the 1927 Berlin premiere had been discovered in Argentina. Although it didn’t include Lang’s entire original version, it was the most complete print of the film ever found. 

For more information about the film visit TCM.