The Matrix

1999

Lana and Lilly Wachowski combined Hong Kong action choreography, cyberpunk fiction, and a philosophy seminar into the most imitated action film of its generation. Keanu Reeves plays Neo, a programmer who suspects something is wrong with the world and then gets an answer he cannot un-know. Laurence Fishburne plays Morpheus, Carrie-Anne Moss plays Trinity, and Hugo Weaving plays Agent Smith. It won four Academy Awards, one of them for the bullet-time effects that nearly every action film since has borrowed.