[3] Griffith chose to explore the theme of intolerance partly in response to his previous film The Birth of a Nation (1915) being derided by the NAACP and others for perpetuating and supporting racial stereotypes and glorifying the Ku Klux Klan.

Breaks between differing time periods are marked by the symbolic image of a mother rocking a cradle, representing the passing of generations.

The lot on Sunset Boulevard featured a Babylon set with 300-foot (91 m) tall walls as well as streets of Judea and medieval France.

[9] Griffith began shooting the film with the Modern Story (originally titled "The Mother and the Law"), whose planning predated the great commercial success of The Birth of a Nation.

[13][14] Theodore Huff, one of the leading film critics of the first half of the 20th century, believed that it was the only motion picture worthy of taking its place alongside Beethoven's Symphony No.

[15] In 1989, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", the first year of voting.

The website's consensus reads: "A pioneering classic and one of the most influential films ever made, D.W. Griffith's Intolerance stands as the crowning jewel in an incredible filmography.

"[20] David Thomson argued that the film's impact is weakened by its "self-destructive frenzy", adding that "The cross-cutting, self-interrupting format is wearisome.

Even though up to that time it was the most expensive American film made and grossed far less than The Birth of a Nation, it earned approximately $1.75 million for its backers, a respectable performance and enough to recoup its budget.

[25] In 1954, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art held a screening of the 1916 film, with organist Vernon Geyer performing the original score.

A further extensive 1989 restoration was a collaboration between silent film composer-conductor Gillian Anderson, the Museum of Modern Art and the Library of Congress.

[30][31] There are other budget/public domain video and DVD versions of this film released by different companies, each with varying degrees of picture quality depending on the source that was used.

[citation needed] It is also known that a major segment of the Renaissance "French" story, involving the attempted assassination of the Admiral Coligny, was cut before the film's release.