Goofs

When Freder and Josaphat are climbing down into the miner's city, Freder is barefoot. When they are taking the children up the stairs, he has shoes again.

When Fredersen and Rotwang leave Rotwang's laboratory to observe Maria's secret meeting, they descend a spiral staircase that spirals clockwise. When they reach the bottom of the stairs, they are seen descending a spiral staircase that spirals counterclockwise. This is repeated when Freder uses the same staircase later in the film. (This could very well be the result of editing: the footage could have been reversed by mistake. This was the case in some of Lawrence of Arabia (1962)'s footage of the desert panoramas where a whole reel was reversed.)

When Freder and Maria reach the top of the stairs, when they are saving the children, their clothes suddenly dry up quite a lot. In the shot before, they are still soaked.

The interior sets of the Rotwang house are much larger than the exterior views. (This discrepancy was first noted in a review by H. G. Wells.)

When Worker 11811 takes the note from Freder, his black beanie is draped over his right fingers. In the close-up of the note in his hand, the beanie is not there.

When Freder first sees the statues of the Seven Deadly Sins, there is almost imperceptible movement by the actors playing some of them, notably 'Eitelkeit'.

Maria is preparing to leave the catacombs, and Rotwang has sneaked in to kidnap her. He diverts her attention by throwing a loose brick to the ground a short distance from himself. The candle Maria is holding is probably a prop that is actually a gas burner. A hose or cord (possibly a gas supply hose) is visible on the ground behind her on her left. She turns to her right and walks. The hose is pulled by her right heel.

Fritz Lang shot more than one version of this movie. There are differences between the version on the Madacy DVD and the Kino DVD. In the Kino DVD, Freder exits the Moloch machine hall in chapter 7 (at around 55 mins). The shot of Freder descending the stairs is missing two motorized utility carts. These appear in the Madacy Video DVD in Chapter 3 (at around 24 mins).

In some of the close-up shots on the children fleeing the flood, the kids are standing in one place jumping around while water is poured onto them - they aren't running at all.

On the Kino DVD, a shot in chapter 7 that lasts nine seconds is backwards. The shot starts at 16 minutes, 33 seconds. It is the third of four cityscape shots in a row. The vehicular traffic in this third shot moves on the left side. The traffic moves on the right side in the second and fourth shots. There is a backward script letter "B" on the left side of the third shot. These indicate the third shot is backwards. If the third shot is reversed, it becomes apparent that it is a close-up of the bottom of the fourth shot.

Although the story takes place in some distant future millennium there are hilarious archaisms throughout the production: they still rely on steam power, transportation never evolves beyond 1920's automobiles and biplanes, clocks and meters are still dial-faced, levers still control operations, phones are still clunky handsets with chords, and people still dress in top hats and tails, frock coats, jodhpurs, Byron shirts, and schoolmarm dresses.

On the Kino DVD, this is a dark scene in chapter 15. The brightness setting has to be turned up to catch this mistake. Rotwang is escorting Joh Fredersen to the catacombs. He has just closed a trap door and is passing Fredesen down the stairway. A cord or cable (possibly an extension cord) is visible fluttering besides Rotwang's right foot.