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Dr Who wasn't lost. It and others were deliberately wiped for reuse (to save less than £200 per episode on video tape) or in case of film, destroyed to save pennies on storage costs. BBC Bean counters destroying culture. Stuff made in ITV in UK mostly survives. Yet BBC had/has archives of sound back to 1922.
The reasons for lost ciinema films is very varied. There was a very good "The Doll" from Tales of Hoffman, though there is a ballet based on the same story.
I think all of ground-breaking Metropolis has been recovered, though a few bits are poor quality. The original VHS had a lot missing. Unfortunately the complete BD has only the captions in the original German, no subtitles. Still, Fritz Lang was a genius and you can mostly follow without caption catds as it's a silent film, though with a good music score.
Before polyester/PET/Mylar AKA Safety Film, film was inflammable and original cellulose Nitrate film was explosively inflammable as it's related to "gun cotton".
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