Ben Hur has the honor of being the most expensive silent film ever made, at a whopping $3.9 million in 1925 money! Metropolis was the most expensive foreign silent film at 5 million Reichsmarks. In January of 1927 the exchange rate was 4.2 Reichsmarks to $1. So, in 1927 dollars that was about $1.19 million. Still, a whole lotta money! The General holds the record for the most expensive single scene ever shot in a silent film – $46,000 for the part where the train plunges off the burning bridge into the river.
