The 10 Most Extravagant Film Sets Ever Built

Film sets on a grand scale are an endangered species, as green screen technology renders them more-limited and less cost-effective with every passing year. Extravagant sets used to be the calling card of big-budget films, going all the way back to the Silent Era, when innovators like Fritz Lang and D.W. Griffith engineered entire cities for the backdrops of epic films like Metropolis and Intolerance. That tradition continued all the way until the end of the century, when directors like James Cameron were still employing massive sets.