Above image: Still, Metropolis, 1927, dir. Frtiz Lang

Part of MoMA’s new online series sees the museum’s staff share their expert recommendations on a host of cultural topics, from legendary directors to artists and designers. Their latest edition sees the design and architecture department wade in with their own list of suggestions: this time film titles in which design and architecture have stolen the show.

From the muscular, imposing architecture of fascist Italy, to neon-humming streets of future cities and fantastical, computer-generated worlds, the list is, if nothing else, a compilation of excellent films.

Immersive setting and scenery are the cornerstones of any compelling narrative, yet often they are rendered invisible by the actors that move through them. In the films listed below however, the two components have equal weighting and mutually inform the other. Take Parasite for example, where the idea of ‘lower’ and ‘upper’ pervades both the physical world (subterranean living vs the gated house on the hill) and the social one (the urban inequality). Piqued your interest? Read on below…

Metropolis (1927, Germany, directed by Fritz Lang) 

“In a city sharply divided between the working class and the city planners, the son of the city’s mastermind falls in love with a working-class prophet who predicts the coming of a savior to bridge their differences. The film includes a futuristic vision of a city yet to come –the mother of all cinematic utopias, including Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.”

Mon Oncle (1958, France, directed by Jacques Tati)

“Suburban life never looked as streamlined as in Villa Arpel, a starkly modern, colorful, and mechanized house outside Paris in the late 1950s. The amicable Monsieur Hulot and his nephew Gérard Arpel, whose parents inhabit the house, embark on a series of adventures inside and outside that consider the promises and failures of modern design.”

Il Conformista (The Conformist), (1970. Italy, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci Kanopy)

“Fascist Italy. A honeymoon. A planned assassination. What is “normal” in a world in which normalcy might also be conforming to an ethic not your own? In Bertolucci’s film, based on a novel by Alberto Moravia, the “empty” spaces of an authoritarian regime are explored with poignancy and detail. A number of the buildings built for the Esposizione Universale di Roma in 1942 (EUR ’42) serve to distance viewers and characters from the very internal questioning that may save them.”

Blade Runner 1982 (the “final cut,” 2007, USA, directed by Ridley Scott, production design by Lawrence Paull)

“Everything in this movie is sublime, including each design and architecture detail. The wild ride across 1980s fashion, from high to low, in Michael Kaplan and Charles Knode’s costumes; Syd Mead’s signature futuristic vehicles and objects; the exquisite LA locations, from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House to Wyman and Hunt’s Bradbury Building; the hints of Metropolis, of French comics, of the Hong Kong skyline…. Every viewing—and I have gone through at least a dozen of them—reveals more surprises.”

Visit MoMA’s website here to see the full list of films and discover the rest of their online program.