diff --git a/src/bin/exrmetrics/main.cpp b/src/bin/exrmetrics/main.cpp
index a7d0a13b6..26d0a91d5 100644
--- a/src/bin/exrmetrics/main.cpp
+++ b/src/bin/exrmetrics/main.cpp
@@ -8,6 +8,8 @@
 
 #include "ImfCompression.h"
 #include "ImfMisc.h"
+#include "ImfThreading.h"
+#include "IlmThreadPool.h"
 
 #include <iostream>
 #include <vector>
@@ -22,6 +24,7 @@ using std::endl;
 using std::ostream;
 using std::vector;
 using namespace Imf;
+using namespace IlmThread;
 
 void
 usageMessage (ostream& stream, const char* program_name, bool verbose = false)
@@ -41,6 +44,10 @@ usageMessage (ostream& stream, const char* program_name, bool verbose = false)
                "  -p n          part number to copy (only one part will be written to output file)\n"
                "                default is part 0\n"
                "\n"
+               "  -m            set to multi-threaded (system selected thread count)\n"
+               "  -t n          use n threads for processing files\n"
+               "                default is single / no threads\n"
+               "\n"
                "  -l level      set DWA or ZIP compression level\n"
                "\n"
                "  -z x          sets the data compression method to x\n"
@@ -66,6 +73,7 @@ main (int argc, char** argv)
     const char* outFile  = nullptr;
     const char* inFile   = nullptr;
     int         part     = 0;
+    int         threads  = 0;
     float       level    = INFINITY;
     int         halfMode = 0; // 0 - leave alone, 1 - just RGBA, 2 - everything
     Compression compression = Compression::NUM_COMPRESSION_METHODS;
@@ -98,6 +106,28 @@ main (int argc, char** argv)
             cout << "License BSD-3-Clause" << endl;
             return 0;
         }
+        else if (!strcmp (argv[i], "-m"))
+        {
+            threads = -1;
+            i += 1;
+        }
+        else if (!strcmp (argv[i], "-t"))
+        {
+            if (i > argc - 2)
+            {
+                cerr << "Missing thread count value with -t option\n";
+                return 1;
+            }
+
+            threads = atoi (argv[i + 1]);
+            if (threads < 0)
+            {
+                cerr << "bad thread count " << argv[i + 1] << " specified to -t option\n";
+                return 1;
+            }
+
+            i += 2;
+        }
         else if (!strcmp (argv[i], "-z"))
         {
             if (i > argc - 2)
@@ -188,6 +218,11 @@ main (int argc, char** argv)
 
     try
     {
+        if (threads < 0)
+            setGlobalThreadCount (ThreadPool::estimateThreadCountForFileIO ());
+        else
+            setGlobalThreadCount (threads);
+
         exrmetrics (inFile, outFile, part, compression, level, halfMode);
     }
     catch (std::exception& what)