
Several of the film’s stylistic inventions – such as the digital rain of the code that composes the Matrix – are iconic parts of contemporary culture.

A hacker, Neo, is alerted to the falseness of the world they live in, and soon starts on a quest to uncover the truth. With The Matrix, released in 1999, the Wachowskis turned that on its head – depicting a dystopian future, where all of humanity had been trapped in a simulated reality, being used as an energy source for artificially intelligent creatures.

Commercial science fiction films could be stylish – like Blade Runner – but studios and filmmakers often focused on bringing science fiction elements to an otherwise human story.
