A vast future city is divided between its proletariat who slave at the machines in the city’s depths and the administrators who live in palatial comfort high in the city’s towers. Freder, son of the city’s leader Joh Fredersen, is struck by the beautiful Maria when she leads a delegation of children into the upper towers. He follows her into the city depths where she stirs revolt among the workers over the conditions they exist in. Swayed by Maria, Freder implores his father to make changes. Instead, his father goes to the scientist Rotwang and gets him to build a robot double of Maria to corrupt the worker’s sympathies. Rotwang seethes over the fact that Fredersen stole his beloved Hel away from him and sees this as an opportunity for revenge. Using the robot Maria, Fredersen has her seduce the workers to rebel and bring the city smashing down.