Synopsis:
In the futuristic mega-city Metropolis, the "managers" live in luxurious skyscrapers while the workers live and toil underground. One day, as Freder, the son of Metropolis founder Joh Fredersen, is cavorting in the Eternal Gardens, he sees a beautiful girl who has with her a group of workers' children. She is quickly shooed away, but Freder follows her down to the workers' underworld. There, he sees the horrors of the workers' lives. He is appalled when an enormous machine, the M-Machine, violently explodes, killing dozens of workers. Freder confronts his father about the workers' plight and the accident at the M-Machine. Grot, foreman of the Heart Machine, informs Fredersen of several mysterious maps found in workers' pockets at the M-Machine. Angered by the news, Frederson fires Josaphat, his clerk, and also orders a spy (credited as the "Thin Man") to tail his son.