18. The Matrix (1999)

A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Directors: Lana Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers),Lilly Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers)

Writers: Lilly Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers),Lana Wachowski (as The Wachowski Brothers)

Stars: Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss

Story:
An infamous hacker called Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) is cornered in an abandoned hotel by police. She overpowers them and escapes, but a group of sinister and superhuman black-suited Agents lead the police on a rooftop pursuit after her. Upon picking up a ringing phone in a telephone booth, an agent tries to kill her with a truck but she vanishes without a trace. an agent tries to kill her with a truck but she vanishes without a trace.

Thomas Anderson (Keanu Reeves) is a computer programmer living a double life under the hacker alias "Neo". He believes something is wrong with the world and is puzzled by repeated online encounters with the cryptic phrase "the Matrix". Trinity contacts him confirming that a man named Morpheus can explain its meaning; however, the Agents, led byAgent Smith, attempt to prevent them from meeting. Undeterred, Neo meets Morpheus, who confirms that Neo can learn the truth about reality by choosing to swallow an offeredred pill, or he can take a blue pill and return to his old life with no memory of the Matrix. Neo chooses the red pill. His reality disintegrates and he awakens, naked and weak, in a liquid-filled pod, finding himself one of countless people connected by cables to an elaborate electrical system. A giant insect-like machine arrives at his pod and chokes him while a cable is unscrewed out of the back of his neck. The rest of the cables explode off of his body and he falls down a tube into disposal. He is rescued and brought aboard Morpheus's hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar.

Morpheus explains that, in the 21st century humans, waged a war against intelligent machines that they had created. When humans blocked the machines' access to solar energy, the machines instead began to harvest the humans' bioelectricity for power. The Matrix is revealed to be a shared simulation of the world as it was in 1999 in which the minds of the harvested humans are trapped and pacified; Neo has been living in it since birth. Morpheus and his crew belong to a group of rebels who hack into the Matrix and "unplug" enslaved humans, recruiting them as rebels. The rebels' understanding of the true nature of the simulated reality allows them to bend its physical laws, granting them superhuman abilities. Neo is warned that fatal injuries within the Matrix will also kill one's physical body, and that the Agents he encountered are powerful sentient programs that eliminate threats to the system. Neo's skill during virtual combat training lends credence to Morpheus's belief that Neo is "the One", a man prophesied to successfully carry forward the insurrection of enslaved humans against the machines.

The group enters the Matrix to visit the Oracle (Gloria Foster), a prophet who predicted the emergence of the One. The Oracle implies to Neo that he is not the One, and warns that he will soon have to choose between his life and the life of Morpheus. Before they can leave the Matrix, the group is ambushed by Agents and tactical police. Morpheus allows himself to be captured so that Neo and the crew can escape. However, their getaway is hindered by Cypher (Joe Pantoliano), a crew member disillusioned with the harshness of the real world. Cypher betrayed Morpheus to Agent Smith in exchange for a return to a blissful, comfortable life within the Matrix. Cypher disconnects and murders several crew members as they lie defenseless in the real world, before he is killed by Tank (Marcus Chong), a crewman whom he had left for dead.

In the Matrix, the Agents interrogate Morpheus in an attempt to learn his access codes to the mainframe computer in Zion, the rebel humans' last refuge in the real world. Concerned that the Agents might succeed in extracting the codes, Tank declares that Morpheus must be killed. Believing that he is not the One, Neo stops Tank and proposes returning to the Matrix to rescue Morpheus, and Trinity insists she accompany him. They succeed in rescuing Morpheus, and in doing so Neo gains confidence in his abilities, performing feats on par with those of the Agents. Morpheus and Trinity exit the Matrix, but Smith ambushes and kills Neo before he can leave. In the real world, "sentinel" machines attack the Nebuchadnezzar, while Trinity stands over Neo and whispers to him that the Oracle told her that she would fall in love with the One. She kisses Neo, and he revives with the power to perceive and control the Matrix. He effortlessly destroys Smith and leaves the Matrix in time for the ship's electromagnetic pulse weapon to disable the attacking sentinels.

Some time later, Neo makes a telephone call in the Matrix, promising the machine masters that he will show their prisoners "a world where anything is possible". He hangs up and flies into the sky.