Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist science-fiction film directed by Fritz Lang. The film was written by Lang and his wife Thea Von Harbou, and starred Brigitte Helm, Gustav Frolich, Alfred Abel and Rudolf Klein-Rogge. The film was produced in the Babelsberg Studios by UFA. Made in Germany during the Weimar Period, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia, and follows the attempts of Freder, the son of a wealthy intellectual, and Maria, a worker's daughter, to overcome the vast gulf separating their two classes.