Back when sentient machines still sounded like fiction, The Matrix showed us a future where they had already won. A cryptic message leads a hacker to a shocking revelation: the world he knew was a simulation controlled by AI overlords, and he might be ‘The One’ destined to free humanity from its digital prison.

Moving beyond the goofy charm of Ted Logan or the hotheaded naïveté of Johnny Utah, Keanu Reeves became Neo, the red-pilled messiah who must rage against the machines. Perhaps no one else could have carried with such grace the existential disorientation, Zen calm, wire-fu athleticism (honed under legendary Hong Kong choreographer Yuen Woo-ping), and the slickest trench coat in the history of cinema. More than just a global hit, The Matrix was a system reset for Reeves, cementing him as not just an A-list action hero but a sci-fi icon synonymous with cyberpunk cool.

Lana Wachowski (b.1965) and Lilly Wachowski (b.1967) are American film and television directors, writers, and producers. The sisters are known for their visually stunning, intellectually ambitious, and often genre-bending work that frequently explores themes of transformation, reality, and technology. Besides the sci-fi gamechanger The Matrix (1999) and its sequels, their notable works include Cloud Atlas (2012), Jupiter Ascending (2015), and Bound (1996).