The invention discloses an internal combustion engine air filter with a metal filter element. The internal combustion engine air filter comprises an air filter body, an airflow pipeline stretching in the air filter body from the top, an oil cup arranged at the bottom of the air filter body and a filtering device arranged on the outer portion of the airflow pipeline in a sleeving manner. An exhaust pipe is arranged on the side wall of the air filter body. A cyclone separator is connected to the top of the airflow pipeline in a sleeving manner and comprises a cyclone separation body, a rotational flow blade seat and a cover. A rotational flow blade is arranged on the rotational flow blade seat. A fixing sleeve is arranged in the middle of the rotational flow blade and is connected to the airflow pipeline in a sleeving manner. A rough filter is arranged at an inlet of the rotational flow blade. The rough filter comprises a first steel wire filter element and a first plastic pipe. The first steel wire filter element is in an annular columnar shape. The first plastic pipe is provided with an annular columnar cavity used for installing the first steel wire filter element. The upper end and the lower end of the cavity are in an opened state. The internal combustion engine air filter is simple in structure, two levels of filtering, namely rough filtering and fine filtering are conducted, and filtering efficiency of the air filter can be improved.