Psychology in Film

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Historical theatrical poster for Metropolis (1927)
Image rights: PD-old-75-expired / mechanical-scan tag and US pre-1931 publication; author Boris Bilinsky died 1948.. Image source

Metropolis

A powerful businessman in a future city recruits a scientist to suppress labor reformers.

1927. Feature film · 148 min (TCM catalog listing; runtime varies across editions). Chronology period: 1920–1949.

Feature filmReference catalog checkedSocial influenceIdentity

Directed or created by
Fritz Lang
Content notes
Social control and conflict over labor reform.

Why this work matters for psychology

The city's hierarchy offers a starting point for discussing authority, group identity, and technology.

Psychological connections

Screen stories illustrate how psychological processes look and feel in narrative form; they are not empirical proof or clinical case studies.

  • Groups and authority

    The attempt to suppress labor reform invites questions about how authority defines a group's interests and its opponents.

    Topic: Social influence, conformity and intergroup biasBasis: Editorial lens; inspected Turner Classic Movies (TCM) catalog synopsis supports the premise only.

  • Roles and social position

    How might a person's position in the city affect the way conflict over reform is interpreted? The film is a fictional prompt for this question.

    Topic: Self, identity and dissociationBasis: Editorial lens; inspected Turner Classic Movies (TCM) catalog synopsis supports the premise only.

Portrayal and accuracy limitations

  • This dystopian story is a representation of social conflict, rather than empirical evidence about crowd behavior.

Questions to watch for

  1. 1. How does the story represent the interests of different groups in the city?
  2. 2. Which actions encourage or obstruct understanding across social positions?

In the Psy101 course

Pairs the film's depiction of class division with OpenStax Section 12.5 on group boundaries and prejudice alongside Chapter 13 (Industrial-Organizational Psychology).

Textbook links show where these concepts sit in an introductory course; they do not study this screen work. See the full topics and course map.

Companion readings and work source

Readings labeled as conceptual companions or contextual references study the psychological topic rather than this screen work.

  1. [1]
    (TCM), T. C. M. (1927). Turner classic movies (TCM) official catalog: Metropolis. https://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/titles/5892Checked 2026-10-23.Reference catalog checkedCatalog details and an indexed synopsis checked; the full page was region restricted.
  2. [2]
    Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). Psychology 2e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/13-3-organizational-psychology-the-social-dimension-of-work(OpenStax course textbook · Selected passages checked · Checked 2026-10-23).Conceptual Companion (Does Not Study This Work)Conceptual companion: does not study this work. It investigates the underlying psychological construct or textbook topic.Introduces organizational psychology through job satisfaction, leadership, teamwork, culture and workplace relationships. Its concepts can frame discussion of institutional settings in films. Selected textbook passages do not validate a screen organization’s portrayal or justify a clinical account of worker behavior.Note: Title, objectives, selected beginning/end paragraphs and section headings inspected; full section prose was retrieved, but no whole-section or whole-book read is claimed.
  3. [3]
    Spielman, R. M., Jenkins, W. J., & Lovett, M. D. (2020). Psychology 2e. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/psychology-2e/pages/12-5-prejudice-and-discrimination(OpenStax course textbook · Full-text passages checked · Checked 2026-10-23).Conceptual Companion (Does Not Study This Work)Conceptual companion: does not study this work. It investigates the underlying psychological construct or textbook topic.Discusses in-group bias and group boundaries as a conceptual vocabulary for examining stratified social systems.Note: Full rendered OpenStax section prose inspected; conceptual companion only, does not study this film.