The Matrix (1999)
The Matrix is a 1999 action movie directed by Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski, with a running time of 2h 16m. It stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne and Carrie-Anne Moss.
Thomas Anderson works a dull software job by day and hacks as Neo by night, nagged by the sense that the world is subtly wrong. A man called Morpheus offers an answer, and Trinity leads him toward it. The Wachowskis build a cyberpunk thriller out of that suspicion, mixing kung fu, gunfights, and Hong Kong action choreography with hard questions about reality and control. Keanu Reeves anchors the film while Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith hunts him through a green-tinted simulation. Its bullet-time set pieces and leather-and-sunglasses look reshaped action cinema for a decade and lodged the red pill into everyday language.
Quick answers
What is The Matrix about?
Thomas Anderson works a dull software job by day and hacks as Neo by night, nagged by the sense that the world is subtly wrong. A man called Morpheus offers an answer, and Trinity leads him toward it. The Wachowskis build a cyberpunk thriller out of that suspicion, mixing kung fu, gunfights, and Hong Kong action choreography with hard questions about reality and control. Keanu Reeves anchors the film while Hugo Weaving's Agent Smith hunts him through a green-tinted simulation. Its bullet-time set pieces and leather-and-sunglasses look reshaped action cinema for a decade and lodged the red pill into everyday language.
When was The Matrix released?
The Matrix was released on 31 March 1999.
How long is The Matrix?
The Matrix runs 2h 16m.
Who made The Matrix?
The Matrix was directed by Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski and Don Davis.
Where can I watch The Matrix?
The Matrix is available on Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango at Home and Spectrum On Demand.
Where to watch The Matrix
Rent: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango at Home, Spectrum On Demand
Buy: Fandango at Home
Official site
Cast
Similar movies
Explore The Matrix guides
The Matrix in our writing
- Companion guide: Cyberpunk: The Complete Guide to the Wired World
- Companion guide: Cyberpunk & Dystopia
- Companion guide: Dreams & the Subconscious
- Companion guide: Hacking & Cybercrime
A few thoughts on The Matrix
Ghost in the Shell shaped the film's look and its questions about a mind living inside a network; start with Ghost in the Shell. For the sound of that future, Deltron 3030 builds a dystopian rap concept album and Simulation Theory runs on the same premise. Gamers should jack into Cyberpunk 2077 next.
Cyberpunk worlds where hacking the system means fighting for your life
Neo starts as Thomas Anderson, a programmer who moonlights as a hacker chasing a truth buried inside the machine. That same figure, someone whose forbidden access to a network turns into open rebellion against whoever runs it, drives these cyberpunk stories too, from Ghost in the Shell's networked minds to Cyberpunk 2077's black market fixers and Half-Life 2's occupied city.
Stories built around discovering your reality is a simulation
Morpheus offers Neo a choice: keep believing the world he knows or learn it is a simulation running on top of a real, ruined Earth. These stories share that same vertigo, a character, or a whole test chamber in Portal's case, realizing the walls around them were built by someone else, and that realizing it changes everything.
Dystopias where waking up to the truth means becoming a target
Once Neo takes the red pill he becomes hunted, marked by Agents the moment he steps outside the system's rules. These dystopias run the same engine: a protagonist who sees through the propaganda keeping everyone docile, and immediately becomes the state's most wanted problem, whether the enemy is Divergent's faction council or the Scorch Trials' hidden experiment.
Machine war stories about humans fighting the AI systems that turned on them
Zion exists because machines rose up and buried the world in permanent cloud cover to cut off humanity's power source. These stories return to that same fracture point, an AI or robot workforce that turns against the people who built it, from Terminator's Skynet to The Electric State's rebel robots and The Creator's war between flesh and code.