It’s hard to describe the amazing caliber of the greatest action movies on display during the 1990s for those who weren’t around to see it. The decade was more than snap bracelets, pastel polos, grunge, and boy band pop music. It was more than the dawn of the internet and the fall of communism. And it was certainly more than its films, but if we’re being honest, the ’90s just might have some of the most memorable action movies ever made. There’s at least 35 we can name that prove it.
While the 1970s saw the gritty Hollywood New Wave and the 1980s induct the likes of Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jean-Claude Van Damme into our canon of cinematic heroes, the 1990s saw action cinema as an art form evolve before our eyes. There were still big muscles and big budgets, sure. But with an influx of talent arriving from overseas – namely Hong Kong – and the emergence of new stars like Keanu Reeves and Will Smith, the ’90s marked the beginning of a new age for action blockbusters.
When it comes to the best action movies, the ’90s just might be the most influential decade in the history of cinema. To prove it, here are 35 of the greatest action movies ever made.
35. Die Hard with a Vengeance
Year: 1995
Director: John McTiernan
Christmas feels so far away in the Indian summer heat of New York City. In the third movie in the Die Hard series, Die Hard with a Vengeance, the five boroughs are on high alert when a mysterious terrorist (Jeremy Irons) threatens to trigger bombs planted all around the city. Bruce Willis returns as hero cop John McClane, teaming up with an electrician (Samuel L. Jackson) to prevent another explosion. Die Hard with a Vengeance received mixed reviews during its initial release in 1995, but the movie has since drawn retrospective praise as one of the best in the whole Die Hard franchise, due in large part to Willis and Jackson’s dynamite chemistry.
34. Point Break
Year: 1991
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
It’s high tide in Point Break, the action blockbuster directed by Kathryn Bigelow, that elevated Keanu Reeves to a whole new level. Reeves stars as FBI agent Johnny Utah, who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of thrill-seeking bank robbers led by free-spirited Bodhi (Patrick Swayze). As Johnny and Bodhi develop a strong personal bond, Johnny’s loyalties come into question as his investigation closes in. Still beloved today for its epic surfing and skydiving sequences, Point Break kicked off the 1990s in total, tubular style.
33. The Rock
Year: 1996
Director: Michael Bay
Welcome to The Rock. While The Rock has a bizarre role in the UK’s participation in the Iraq War, it doesn’t stop it from being one of the greatest action films of the 1990s. In Michael Bay’s sophomore effort, Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery team up to stop Ed Harris, who plays a rogue U.S. military general who takes Alcatraz Island hostage and threatens to launch rockets containing a deadly nerve gas upon San Francisco. Cage and Connery are just as chemically imbalanced, putting on dialed-up performances in a red-hot action-thriller that makes one say, “Hell yeah.” Not-so-fun fact: in 2016, the Chilcot Inquiry revealed a source intentionally misled Britain’s MI6 into believing Saddam Hussein was producing anthrax with descriptions based on chemical production, as seen in The Rock.
32. Mortal Kombat
Year: 1995
Director: Paul W. S. Anderson
Fatality! In the 1990s, arcades were ruled by the controversial and wildly popular Mortal Kombat franchise. In 1995, Paul W.S. Anderson helmed a film version of Mortal Kombat, which retold most of the first game’s story in live-action. Robin Shou stars as Shaolin warrior Liu Kang, who joins an ancient tournament to defeat the sorcerer Shang Tsung (Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa). Joining him are new friends, including the Thunder God Raiden (Christopher Lambert), pampered movie star Johnny Cage (Linden Ashby), hard-nosed Special Forces officer Sonya Blade (Bridgette Wilson) who test their might against elemental ninjas and ruthless mercenaries. For a long time, Mortal Kombat was regarded as one of the best video game movies of all time, and for good reason: It kicks serious butt.
31. Ronin
Year: 1998
Director: John Frankenheimer
You never know what’s in the briefcase. But it doesn’t matter. What really matters is how fragile loyalties are when they’re up for sale. Such is the way of the underworld in John Frankenheimer’s late ’90s heist thriller, in which a team of guns for hire – played by Robert de Niro, Jean Reno, Sean Bean, and Stellan Skarsgård – are hired by an IRA operative (Natascha McElhone) to steal a briefcase containing… well, who knows? In defiance of Hollywood action cliches, Ronin’s adherence to heightened realism in almost all its setpieces, from shootouts to Parisian car chases, make it one of the most immersive action movies ever made.
30. Hard Target
Year: 1993
Director: John Woo
After blowing up Hong Kong to become one of Asia’s leading cinematic visionaries, John Woo made his journey to the West. Kicking off his decade in Hollywood was the Jean-Claude Van Damme vehicle Hard Target. Van Dammeplays a New Orleans sailor hired to help a woman find her father, only to end up in the crosshairs of a deranged criminal (Lance Henriksen) who hunts homeless people for sport. Despite Woo’s tensions with Universal Studios, who didn’t have much faith in a foreign director, Hard Target has endured as one of the most exciting action movies of its era, an exciting mixture of classic Westerns and operatic action elegance that Woo made famous overseas.
29. Fist of Legend (1994)
Year: 1994
Director: Gordon Chan
In 1994, Jet Li embarked on quite the undertaking: remaking Bruce Lee’s classic Fist of Fury. The result was his hard-hitting kung fu epic Fist of Legend, directed by Gordon Chan. Li plays Bruce Lee’s folk hero, Chen Zhen, who returns home to China to avenge the death of his master. With choreography from Yuen Woo-ping, whose fingerprints would later be all over The Matrix and Kill Bill, and immersion into the political and social unrest of post-Qing Dynasty China, Fist of Legend proves the kung fu genre isn’t all low-rent hi-yahs! and paint-by-numbers revenge tales. Li also earns his reputation as among the all-time greatest action heroes by doing the impossible: Making a movie leagues better than Bruce Lee.
28. Rush Hour
Year: 1998
Director: Brett Ratner
When the fastest hands in the East meets the biggest mouth in the West, all of Los Angeles is put on notice. After becoming a word-of-mouth action star in America (via import releases of his films like Drunken Master, Police Story, and Rumble in the Bronx), Jackie Chan finally made a proper Hollywood hit in Rush Hour, directed by Brett Ratner. Chan co-stars with wisecracking comedy star Chris Tucker, the two playing cops from opposite sides of the globe who reluctantly team up to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Hong Kong diplomat. Though the humor may have aged like warm milk, there’s no denying that Chan and Tucker are a match made in heaven, with Chan’s quick kicks and straight-man aura complementary to Tucker’s killer comic timing.
27. The Quick and the Dead
Year: 1995
Director: Sam Raimi
After emerging as a B-movie horror auteur in the 1980s, Sam Raimi matured in the 1990s with polished big studio movies and acclaimed pictures like 1998’s A Simple Plan. But one of Raimi’s most underrated movies emerged in 1995: the Western pic The Quick and the Dead. In this star-studded thriller where guns go blazing, Sharon Stone plays a vengeful cowgirl who enters a frontier town’s gunfighter tournament to kill her father’s murderer. Surrounding Stone are the likes of Gene Hackman, Russell Crowe, Keith David, Lance Henriksen, and a young Leonardo DiCaprio, who all populate the movie as ace shooters with cranked-up personalities. The Quick and the Dead may not be as universally loved as his other movies, but Raimi’s spin on the Western genre cannot be missed.
26. Armageddon
Year: 1998
Director: Michael Bay
It may be as dumb as space rocks, but you can’t close your eyes during Armageddon, because you don’t want to miss a thing. Michael Bay’s smash-hit blockbuster was hard to ignore when it released in 1998, its story about underdog heroes and sacrificing for the greater good resonating with an audience eager to get swept off their feet. Bruce Willis takes charge as a deep-core driller whose men are recruited by NASA to dismantle an incoming asteroid headed straight for Earth. A disaster epic about defying impossible odds, Armageddon had everything you could ever want in a Hollywood crowd-pleaser, including a theme song to end all theme songs, courtesy of Aerosmith.
25. Rumble in the Bronx
Year: 1995
Director: Stanley Tong
Never mind that Rumble in the Bronx was filmed in Vancouver. Jackie Chan is forgiven, because he’s just so darn unstoppable in this 1995 flick from director Stanley Tong. In this movie, where Chan plays a fish-out-water cop, the kung fu star navigates the mean streets of New York during his uncle’s wedding as he comes to blows with violent gangs. While produced out of Hong Kong, Rumble in the Bronx was released in the United States by New Line Cinema with a marketing campaign that strove to introduce American audiences to Jackie Chan and his particular brand of action. It’s one heck of an introduction, as Rumble in the Bronx sports some of Chan’s greatest choreography ever captured on film. You’ll never look at a refrigerator the same way again.
24. Blade
Year: 1998
Director: Stephen Norrington
The current Marvel timeline and Marvel Cinematic Universe as a whole owes everything to Blade. Though a handful of films based on Marvel’s comics were made before Blade in 1998, its success was the one-two punch – with X-Men in 2000 – that made superheroes trendy in Hollywood, giving Marvel its first ounce of clout to later form Marvel Studios. But it’s no mystery why audiences flocked to see Blade in the first place. Wesley Snipes is in peak condition as the “daywalker” Blade, a rare breed of half-vampire who hunts other vampires in revenge for killing his mother. Simply put, there has never been a superhero as cool as Blade, and Snipes – who weaponized his lifelong training in martial arts disciplines like Shotokan and Hapkido – chews up every second he’s on screen. Some men are always trying to ice-skate uphill, but you’ll never catch Blade being so desperate.
23. The Crow
Year: 1994
Director: Alex Proyas
“It can’t rain all the time.” A dark superhero classic textured by real-life tragedy, Brandon Lee (son of the legendary Bruce Lee) feels immortal in Alex Proyas’ The Crow, based on the comics by James O’Barr. An ancient crow spirit resurrects a gone-too-soon rock star, Eric Draven (Lee), one year after his grisly murder, imbuing him with superpowers to help him satisfy his thirst for vengeance against those who killed him and his fiance. While The Crow launched a franchise of lesser sequels, TV shows, and even a 2024 remake, the original with Brandon Lee towers as a monument to the grunge era that wholly defined the early ’90s. The tragic loss of Lee, who died in an on-set accident, only makes The Crow’s gothic themes of death, resurrection, and legacy all the more potent.
22. Starship Troopers
Year: 1997
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Director Paul Verhoeven hated the 1959 novel Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein. He said as much in a 2014 interview with Empire. The filmmaker found it too fetishistic of fascist regimes, which did not sync with his own upbringing in Nazi-occupied Netherlands. But only a filmmaker like Verhoeven could lampoon a book while simultaneously adapting it for the screen. Such is the case with his 1997 movie Starship Troopers, which faithfully tells the story of Heinlein’s book whilst rendering its universe and characters into satirical plastic. While Starship Troopers seems like a cool movie about mankind fighting alien bugs in the future – and in a weird twist of irony, its action scenes are actually very cool – its brilliance comes from realizing its true conceit: that the real monsters aren’t the ones you think they are.
21. True Lies
Year: 1994
Director: James Cameron
At first blush, an action-comedy like True Lies doesn’t feel like a James Cameron movie. There are no blue aliens, time traveling robots, not even a star-crossed romance on a doomed luxury liner. But True Lies has plenty of heart. A remake of the 1991 French movie La Totale!, True Lies mixes up suburban domesticity with the spy business as Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a federal agent whose wife (Jamie Lee Curtis) gets unwittingly wrapped up in his top-secret profession. While True Lies culminates in an over-the-top finale involving jet fighters shooting missiles and weaving around skyscrapers, most of True Lies is all about how hard – and funny – it can be to maintain a proper work/life balance.
20. Once Upon a Time in China 2
Year: 1992
Director: Tsui Hark
Before making waves in Hollywood, Jet Li cemented his star in Hong Kong throughout the 1990s. His masterpieces during this time remain his appearances in the film series Once Upon a Time in China, which started as a collection of wuxia period epics directed by Tsui Hark. While the whole series is worth checking out, 1992’s Once Upon a Time in China 2 is a stand-out as Jet Li squares up with then-rising star Donnie Yen in a true clash of the titans. Li reprises his protagonist, Wong Fei-hung, a noted kung fu master and physician who finds himself pitted against an ultra-nationalist religious cult that seeks to drive all foreigners out of China. Once Upon a Time in China II is simply Jet Li at his best, a hero with lightning-fast fists and upright ideals who fights for a more inclusive China.
19. Predator 2
Year: 1990
Director: Stephen Hopkins
Moving from the jungles of South America into the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, Predator 2 is a stand-alone sequel that proves it doesn’t need Arnold Schwarzenegger to flex its muscles. In the first sequel to the Predator franchise, Danny Glover stars as an overwhelmed LAPD lieutenant whose investigation into warring cartels is interrupted by a lethal, technologically overpowered hunter from outer space. While Predator 2 drew negative reviews during its release in 1990, it has since developed a cult following from those who vibe with its muscular action sequences and Glover’s performance as a flummoxed cop who just wants to clock out in one piece. Predator 2 memorably kicked off the series’ signature anthology approach, with later entries following a new cast of characters in new settings.
18. Air Force One
Year: 1997
Director: Wolfgang Petersen
So many action movies follow a lone hero tasked with rescuing the President of the United States. But Air Force One from 1997 dares to ask: what if POTUS were an action hero himself? Harrison Ford wins the popular vote in his role as an elected leader of the free world whose flying fortress of an airplane gets hijacked by neo-Soviet terrorists, led by Gary Oldman. While a President who shoots up Russian bad guys is a premise only the 1990s could cook up, Ford keeps his cool as a Commander-in-Chief who really takes initiative and doesn’t need his cabinet to throw the kitchen sink.
17. Face/Off
Year: 1997
Director: John Woo
While most may be unfamiliar with John Woo’s action classics made in Hong Kong, there’s no way to escape the cult classic that is Face/Off. At the peak of their stardoms, John Travolta and Nicolas Cage stare down as an FBI agent (Travolta) and a master terrorist (Cage) who switch faces after a cutting-edge experimental surgery. Both Cage and Travolta put on a clinic of exaggerated performances, each man relishing the opportunity to play a smarmy villain in the same film. After some years of getting accustomed to the Hollywood system, Woo at last imprints his stylistic signatures into a big studio tentpole, leaving Face/Off with split identities as both a mindless Hollywood spectacle and an aesthetic homage to Hong Kong’s heroic bloodshed period.
16. Desperado
Year: 1995
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Spinning off from Robert Rodriguez’s small-budget indie debut El Mariachi, Antonio Banderas takes over from Carlos Gallardo as a nameless assassin who keeps his arsenal in a tricked-out guitar case. In Desperado, the mysterious “Mariachi” rolls into a Mexican border town in search of the crime lord who killed his lover. He eventually teams up with a bookstore owner (Salma Hayek, in a performance that made her famous) to see his vengeance through. Rodriguez’s go-for-broke bombast is on full display in Desperado, a Latino-flavored Western that struts as much as it sings.
15. Léon the Professional
Year: 1994
Director: Luc Besson
A young Natalie Portman made her feature film debut in Luc Besson’s simmering New York crime noir Léon the Professional. Jean Reno leads as a reclusive hitman who takes in a young neighbor (Portman) after her family is brutally murdered by a corrupt DEA agent (Gary Oldman). Léon reluctantly teaches her the ways of his black profession to help her survive, all while holding out hope that she’ll get to live a normal life. A grimy thriller set in a bleak New York City that is rarely seen in cinema anymore, Léon the Professional endures thanks to some of the greatest dramatic performances from Portman and Oldman.
14. Police Story 3: Supercop
Year: 1992
Director: Stanley Tong
1996 was a breakout year for Jackie Chan. Along with the release of Rumble in the Bronx, Police Story 3: Supercop – the explosive third entry in his hit Police Story series – was also released in the U.S. (dubbed in English) under the simplified title Supercop. Chan reprises his protagonist from Police Story, teaming with a top-level Chinese officer (Michelle Yeoh) to infiltrate a powerful cartel. While Chan is formidable on his own, his pairing with Yeoh makes them both a force to reckon with. It’s almost too much for one movie, which is how Yeoh got her own spin-off in Supercop 2. Fans of Yeoh always knew she was capable of Oscar gold, but her Supercop movies are existing proof of her action heroine mettle.
13. Last Action Hero
Year: 1993
Director: John McTiernan
Just when it seemed like Arnold Schwarzenegger was old news, John McTiernan’s self-referential Last Action Hero reminded everyone why he’s one of the greatest to ever do it. Austin O’Brien stars as a movie-obsessed teenager who is whisked away into the world of his favorite action movie franchise, centered around Jack Slater (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also plays Arnold Schwarzenegger). Reality and the make-believe world of movies blur as Jack Slater’s nemesis (Charles Dance) escapes into the “real” world, prompting Jack Slater to spring into action – and through the screen. An affectionate parody and love letter to the action movie genre, Last Action Hero is a testament to how heroes never go out of style.
12. The Mask of Zorro
Year: 1998
Director: Martin Campbell
Long after Zorro rode off into the sunset, Martin Cambell brought the dashing vigilante swordsman back for a new adventure in The Mask of Zorro. Antonio Banderas plays a 19th-century Spanish California outlaw who trains to become the new Zorro, taking over for the aging Don Diego (played by Anthony Hopkins) and carrying on his legacy. A spiritual reincarnation of the long-thought-extinct genre of Hollywood swashbucklers, The Mask of Zorro is summer movie perfection, with winning performances by Banderas, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and an expansive score by James Horner. It’s a slice of popcorn movie heaven, where white hat heroes who operate outside the law come dressed in black.
11. Total Recall
Year: 1990
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Philip K. Dick’s 1966 short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” comes to life with the help of Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi vision and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s swole muscles. Schwarzenegger stars in Total Recall as a construction worker haunted by nighttime dreams of Mars. He soon finds out his dreams are informed by his real memories and learns he’s actually a sleeper agent for a shadowy organization. Total Recall is one of Schwarzenegger’s more cerebral movies, though it never forgets to entertain thanks to breakneck action setpieces, impressive practical effects, and one-liners that only Arnie could deliver.
10. Men in Black
Year: 1997
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
One part buddy action-comedy, one part sci-fi that plays with popular conspiracy theories, Men in Black is one solid good time that makes the most out of stars Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Smith plays an NYPD officer recruited by the mysterious “MIB,” a top-secret government agency that oversees the secret immigration and integration of aliens on Earth. Smith becomes “Agent J,” and is paired with no-nonsense veteran “Agent K” (Jones). The two race against time to stop the destruction of Earth by an angry, cockroach-like species. With a top-notch script that doesn’t waste a single second of its lean 98-minute runtime and mesmerizing (and gross-out) special effects, Men in Black is actually the kind of action tentpole they don’t make anymore: lean, mean, and totally inspired.
9. Bad Boys
Year: 1995
Director: Michael Bay
When Will Smith and Martin Lawrence said “bad boys for life,” they meant it. The first in the long-running Bad Boys franchise came in 1995, with commercial director-turned action filmmaker Michael Bay pairing Smith and Lawrence as loudmouth Miami detectives on a case involving hundreds of millions in illicit drugs. The case even compels the two to switch places, with single playboy Mike Lowrey (Smith) posing as a family man and married father Marcus Burnett (Lawrence) enjoying the freedom of a bachelor lifestyle. From snappy (and brazenly R-rated) one-liners to rollicking shoot-outs, Bad Boys was just the beginning of a ride-or-die adventure.
8. Mission: Impossible
Year: 1996
Director: Brian De Palma
The first Mission: Impossible, directed by Brian De Palma, might not have Tom Cruise hanging off airplanes or bungee jumping off the Burj Khalifa. But it still has Tom Cruise operating at maximal levels in the first of many movies. Based on the spy-fi TV series, the ’96 Mission: Impossible sees the first-ever outing by IMF agent Ethan Hunt (Cruise), who is framed for a botched mission and assembles a new team to help clear his name and weed out the true traitor in the agency. While the Mission: Impossible series had yet to see the spectacular heights it would later be known for, the first movie is no slouch, being a straightforward thriller with some of its own iconic setpieces, namely the silent vault sequence.
7. Saving Private Ryan
Year: 1998
Director: Steven Spielberg
Dispelling popular images of World War 2 as sepia-toned nostalgia, Steven Spielberg’s 1998 classic Saving Private Ryan balances between a PTSD-inducing nightmare and a monument to bygone bravery and sacrifice. Tom Hanks plays against his usual type of wholesome men as a surprisingly cold U.S. captain in World War 2 tasked with a public relations mission: locating Private James Ryan Francis (Matt Damon) and bringing him back home to safety. From its unforgettable and utterly harrowing opening on the beaches of Normandy to its stunning immersion into the bombed-out wilds of Nazi-occupied France, Saving Private Ryan is an American action classic worthy of salute.
6. Speed
Year: 1994
Director: Jan de Bont
Keanu Reeves was already a known star before 1994, with roles in hits like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Point Break, Much Ado About Nothing, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula. But Speed shifted Reeves into a whole new gear. With its pressure-cooker premise – about an L.A. commuter bus loaded with a bomb that can’t ever slow down – Reeves dazzles as a formidable action hero with plenty of boyish charm to swoon teen magazines. Buoyed by his chemistry with female lead Sandra Bullock, Speed is a propulsive showcase for Reeves as a capital-M movie star. One might call him unstoppable.
5. The Fugitive
Year: 1993
Director: Andrew Davis
The moment when Harrison Ford is cornered at a waterfall with nowhere else to go? The very definition of iconic. In 1993, The Fugitive was both a monster box office hit and an Oscar-nominated movie, with Harrison Ford playing an on-the-run surgeon framed for his wife’s murder and races to clear his name. Though Ford has enjoyed Hollywood stardom playing the likes of Indiana Jones and Han Solo, his standalone hits from the ’90s have made him true Hollywood royalty. The Fugitive is a grounded chase thriller that still feels exciting as it looks exhausting.
4. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Year: 1991
Director: James Cameron
There are sequels, and there is Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Arnold Schwarzenegger returns as a reprogrammed T-800 who is sent back in time by mankind to save Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and her adolescent son John (Edward Furlong) from assassination by the advanced T-1000 (Robert Patrick). Where the first Terminator was a slasher flick disguised as a tech noir seeped in 1980s-era paranoia over nuclear war, James Cameron’s epic sequel takes the mythology further to tell a new story about destiny, identity, and about the lengths we go for the ones we love. Terminator 2: Judgement Day is perfect, not to mention a technically revolutionary action movie, the likes of which Hollywood didn’t see again… until James Cameron returned to helm a little movie called Avatar.
3. Heat
Year: 1995
Director: Michael Mann
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino really cook things up in Michael Mann’s seminal action noir Heat. Released in 1995, De Niro and Pacino co-star as a veteran bank robber and flummoxed detective, respectively, as they enter a tense game of cat and mouse that really brings all of Los Angeles to a boil. While Heat isn’t all explosions and car chases, Mann directs the heck out of the movie’s bank robberies and shootouts. And really, no one is here to see bodies hit the floor. They come to see De Niro and Pacino put on the performance of a lifetime over coffee in a diner.
2. Hard Boiled
Year: 1992
Director: John Woo
The slow-motion gun-fu. The Mexican standoffs. Two men with nothing to lose. Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung are impenetrable in John Woo’s heroic bloodshed classic Hard Boiled, one of the last movies he’d make in Hong Kong before spending the rest of the 1990s in glamorous Hollywood. Chow Yun-fat stars as ice-cool Inspector Tequila (you’ve got to know why that’s his name), who teams up with an undercover officer amid their investigation of a dangerous triad involved with weapons trafficking. The plot might be undercooked, but Hard Boiled is a juicy steak of an action classic where Woo unloads his clip and leaves nothing behind.
1. The Matrix
Year: 1999
Director(s): Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
Once Carrie Ann-Moss jump-kicked a rent-a-cop in 360 degrees, audiences knew that nothing would be the same ever again. Directed by iconoclast directors the Wachowskis, The Matrix hacked into our brains at precisely the right time, being a transgressive sci-fi epic about hackers and rebelling against oppressive systems at the dawn of the 21st century. Fusing Hong Kong stylings with the aesthetics and ideologies of Japanese anime and the cyberpunk movement, the Wachowskis introduced a new breed of action hero, Neo (Keanu Reeves), who unplugs from a false reality and awakes to find the “real” world where humanity is enslaved by machines and wage war for independence. 1999 was a big year for movies, but few sci-fi movies of the year have left an impact as much as The Matrix, which set all of cinema on a new course for the next decade.
