The Matrix
Free your mind.
A hacker learns his world is a simulation and joins a rebellion fought inside the machine that farms humanity.
- Director
- The Wachowskis
- Signature
- Action · Suspense · Mind-Bending
- Worldwide
- $464M
Who's in it
Cast
The billed ensemble, with character names. Open any performer for their Nutevio filmography.
The Nutevio profile
Movie DNA
How The Matrix actually feels to watch, measured on the twelve traits our editors track across every Nutevio title.
Perfect if you enjoyed
Story overview
What It's About
Spoiler-free. Read the analysis below for the full argument.
A hacker learns his world is a simulation and joins a rebellion fought inside the machine that farms humanity.
Nutevio Editorial Analysis
Why The Matrix works
The Wachowskis' film synthesises Hong Kong action choreography, cyberpunk literature and anime into a grammar so complete that twenty-five years of blockbusters are still borrowing from it.
Bullet time is the famous invention, but the more durable one is the film's willingness to explain itself. It spends its entire second act teaching the audience its rules, and trusts that the payoff is worth the lecture.
Bill Pope shoots the simulation with a green cast and the real world in cold blue, a colour logic so clear it needs no dialogue.
The film has since been reclaimed as an explicitly trans allegory by its own directors, which reframes the story of a person living under an assigned identity as something considerably more personal than a tech parable.
By The Nutevio Editors
Where to watch
Streaming
Availability verified against regional listings.
Checking regional listings…
Why We Recommend It
Why It's Ranked
The Matrix appears in 6 Nutevio collections. Here is the argument behind each placement.
- Best Action Movies Ranked #1
Ranked #1 because it rewrote how action is shot and edited.
Wire work, bullet time, a new grammar.
- Best Philosophical Movies Ranked #1
Ranked #1 because it smuggled genuine philosophy into a blockbuster.
Simulation, choice and the comfort of the cage.
- Top 100 Mind-Bending Movies Ranked #3
Ranked #3 because it made metaphysics legible to a mass audience without dumbing it down.
The world is a simulation and the exit is a phone call.
- Action Movies Ranked #3
Ranked #3 because rated 9.2 by the Nutevio editors — one of the strongest action titles in the catalogue.
A hacker learns his world is a simulation and joins a rebellion fought inside the machine that farms humanity.
- Sci-Fi Movies Ranked #5
Ranked #5 because rated 9.2 by the Nutevio editors — one of the strongest sci-fi titles in the catalogue.
A hacker learns his world is a simulation and joins a rebellion fought inside the machine that farms humanity.
- Top 250 Movies of All Time Ranked #8
Ranked #8 because the action grammar of the last 25 years starts here.
A rebellion fought inside the machine.
The record
Awards
8 wins · 4 nominations
Four Academy Awards, sweeping every technical category it entered.
Academy Awards
4 wins · 4 nominations
- WinnerAcademy Award for Best Film Editing
- WinnerAcademy Award for Best Sound
- WinnerAcademy Award for Best Sound Editing
- WinnerAcademy Award for Best Visual Effects
BAFTA Awards
2 wins
- WinnerBAFTA Award for Best Sound
- WinnerBAFTA Award for Best Special Visual Effects
Saturn Awards
2 wins
- WinnerSaturn Award for Best Director
- WinnerSaturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film
The numbers
Box Office & Release
The Matrix returned 7.4× its budget worldwide.
- Budget
- $63M
- Opening weekend
- —
- Domestic gross
- —
- International gross
- —
- Worldwide gross
- $464M
- Release date
- Mar 31, 1999
- Runtime
- 2h 16m
- MPAA rating
- R
- Language
- English
- Country
- United States of America
Figures from the verified production record. Fields we cannot source are left blank rather than estimated.
Watch
Official Trailer
How it was made
Behind The Scenes
Production facts, technique and the decisions that shaped what ended up on screen.
Four months of training
The principal cast trained in wire-fu with Yuen Woo-ping before a frame was shot.
120 still cameras
Bullet time was built from rigs of stills cameras fired in sequence and interpolated.
In their words
Iconic Quotes
“There is no spoon.”
“I know kung fu.”
“Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.”
