Just over 30 minutes of footage of the film was all that was thought to have survived in the Getty Images until the owner of a warehouse in Santiago, Chile, discovered a complete film cut in excellent condition overall.
Originally, only one reel was known to have survived, according to a recent biography of Walsh. However, a complete print was found in the Italian archive Cineteca Del Friuli in Gemona.
While Mary Pickford carefully preserved most of her filmography, she allowed Rosita to decay, save for the film's fourth reel, and no complete prints of the film were thought to exist. However, in the 1960s a nitrate print was discovered in the Russian film archives and repatriated by the Museum of Modern Art. A safety preservation negative was made from the nitrate print, but no further work was done on the film.
For decades, the excerpt included in the 1957 compilation film The Golden Age of Comedy was thought to be the only remaining footage, until the first reel (featuring a boxing match) was found in the late 1970s, but scenes featuring Eugene Pallette, and a final climactic gag showing a cop receiving a pie in the face were missing until the second reel was discovered in a private collection in June 2015.
After the German premiere, nearly a quarter of Metropolis was cut. Over the years, some of the missing footage resurfaced. In 2008, two different versions of the film were found: one by Museo del Cine from Buenos Aires, Argentina, and another in the National Film Archive of New Zealand. Both versions were then edited into one cut to get as near the original version as possible.
Gance destroyed the original uncut negatives that lasted 6 hours in the 1950s, but film historian Kevin Brownlow tracked down various prints of the film and made a final cut lasting 5 hours.
Until recently, only one reel with a color sequence was thought to have survived, until the complete Technicolor print was discovered in Prague in December 2013.
The film was quickly pulled from distribution because of multiple violations of the Production Code. A few scenes were cut, while a few others were replaced. In 2004, an uncensored version was located in a Library of Congress film vault in Dayton, Ohio, and premiered at London Film Festival.
A few years later after its release in Japan, Toho made extensive cuts to the film and re-released it. Later, Toho made even more cuts for future re-releases, and the removed footage then went lost. During the 1980s, numerous efforts were made to find the missing scenes, but nothing turned up until the 1990s and 2000s, when all these scenes were found. After recovery, Toho re-released the film once more, with all the missing footage restored.
After its initial release much of the film's gore was edited out from the original negative. For its 2023 Ultra HD Blu-ray re-release, a 35mm print of the film in excellent condition was located, allowing for the director's original vision to be released.
