we see the director's towering world of tomorrow being erected on the foundations of yesterday's cultural influence... a dizzying postmodern edifice, more impressive for its shimmering Steampunk architecture than for the dramas accommodated within

| Jan 16, 2017

A fairly standard genre exercise, packed with light, detail, color, noise, and motion that add up to relatively little.

Full Review | Jul 19, 2010

Tale of the struggle for personal freedom in a futuristic, tyrannical society is light on action by contempo standards, and pic's look is uninteresting, apart from occasionally bizarre backgrounds.

| Oct 18, 2008

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 18, 2008

It smoothly blends outrageously diverse visual styles and emotional tones.

| Apr 17, 2007

One of the most beautiful animated films ever produced.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Dec 30, 2006

Otomo's typically sophisticated script ensures slick pacing, combining humour, terror and pathos, particularly in the final scenes.

| Jun 24, 2006

Parts of it are very silly, but it is still extraordinarily powerful as cinema and its meanings grow murkier, not clearer, with what we now know of Lang's life.

| May 23, 2003

A film of staggering technical and visual virtuosity, filled with utterly amazing images, that's also entertaining and engaging for children and adults on several levels.

| Jul 20, 2002

The imagery with which director Rintaro brings this world to animated life is unique and captivating.

| Original Score: B | May 23, 2002

One of the most important and exhilarating forms of animated filmmaking since old Walt doodled Steamboat Willie.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 10, 2002

Unlike most anime, whose most ardent fans outside Japan seem to be introverted young men with fantasy fetishes, Metropolis never seems hopelessly juvenile.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 26, 2002

Brings together some of the biggest names in Japanese anime, with impressive results.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Feb 17, 2002

It's an interesting genre. It's not for me, and I think it's far from great.

Full Review | Feb 4, 2002

Apart from its own considerable achievement, Metropolis confirms Tezuka's status as both the primary visual influence on the animé tradition and its defining philosophical conscience.

| Feb 1, 2002

Has an almost stupefyingly intense visual impact.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 1, 2002

A fast-moving and remarkable film that appears destined to become a landmark in Japanese animation.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Feb 1, 2002

Both beautiful and distant.

Full Review | Jan 29, 2002

A delightful stimulus for the optic nerves, so much that it's forgivable that the plot feels like every other tale of a totalitarian tomorrow.

Full Review | Jan 25, 2002

The urban landscapes are detailed down to the signs on the kiosks, and the color palette, with lots of somber blues and pinks, is dreamy and evocative.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jan 25, 2002