People in the early 20th century had little sense of the historical value of their pop culture; and, celluloid is hilariously flammable. So it's unusual to get good news about old film reels (just ask Universal Studios).
Amazingly, a full theatrical version of Fritz Lang's silent classic Metropolis -- the version thought lost forever -- has turned up in Argentina.
To give you some background: this original theatrical version, which runs about 210 minutes, was only seen in a handful of theaters in Germany in 1927 before it was chopped down to a 90 minute running time for widespread distribution. As you might imagine, certain story elements got pretty severely lost in the process. About six years ago the F.W. Murnau Foundation released a digitally-restored version that clocked in at around two hours and described some of the "lost forever" footage via new title cards -- that's the only version I've seen.
Now if they can only find the director's cut of The Magnificent Ambersons...
Too bad they didn’t find the dialog, amirightpeople?!