Film

The Matrix Resurrections

Name: The Matrix Resurrections
Genre: Science Fiction, Action, Adventure
Released: 2021
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Jonathan Groff, Jessica Henwick

Science fiction

Twenty years later, Neo wakes up trapped in a new version of the Matrix, unsure what's real and what's simulation. Lana Wachowski's return to her own universe is deliberately, almost jarringly soft—less about leather and gunplay than about love, loss, and the cost of false choices. It's for people who loved the original not despite its philosophical weight, but because of it.

TMDb rating

3.1

If you liked this

Blade Runner 20492017

A meditative sci-fi film about memory, identity, and what it means to be real. Quiet, visually stunning, and interested in the same metaphysical questions The Matrix Resurrections wrestles with throughout.

But Slow and deliberate in a way that demands patience. If you want propulsive action or quick answers, this will feel glacial.

TRON: Legacy2010

A director revisiting their own digital world with visual ambition and emotional weight. The soundtrack alone justifies the watch, and it shares The Matrix's fascination with worlds within worlds.

But The dialogue can feel wooden, and some of the emotional beats land awkwardly. It's also very, very 2010 in its aesthetic.

Dark City1998

Pre-dates The Matrix but explores similar terrain: a reality that's been compromised, characters slowly waking to the truth. It's visually baroque and genuinely unsettling in ways the sequels never quite managed.

But The pacing is uneven and the exposition can feel clumsy. Also genuinely bleak in a way that doesn't offer much comfort by the end.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Matrix Resurrections

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Both explore the terror and loneliness of not knowing what's real, and whether escaping the cage is worth the cost of losing everyone inside it.

Charlie Kaufman's masterwork about a director building an exact replica of New York inside a warehouse—a man constructing his own private reality, then losing himself in it. It's The Matrix's opposite number: not waking up from the false world, but voluntarily disappearing into one you've built yourself. About grief, ego, and the addictive comfort of control.

But Deliberately disorienting, formally ambitious, and emotionally exhausting. It resists being liked and some viewers find it self-indulgent or deeply depressing rather than profound.

Westworld2016

A playground for the same questions: what makes consciousness real? What do we owe to artificial beings? Sharp, violent, and genuinely ambitious television that respects the audience's intelligence.

But It loses its way after the first season and becomes increasingly convoluted. The later seasons feel like they're solving problems nobody had anymore.

Arrival2016

Denis Villeneuve's examination of how language shapes reality and whether we can choose our own fate. Quiet, profound, and genuinely moving in ways that sneak up on you.

But Almost entirely dialogue and thinking rather than action. If you need things to happen onscreen constantly, this will feel static.

Inception2010

A heist story that plays with the nature of reality and dreams. Visually spectacular, intellectually engaging, and has enough momentum to carry even viewers skeptical of its philosophy.

But The exposition dumps are heavy-handed, and by the third act it's mostly spectacle. Also the ending deliberately refuses to settle anything.

The OA2016

A serialized mystery about parallel dimensions, bodies, and the search for meaning. Weird, earnest, and visually inventive in ways that feel specifically influenced by The Matrix's DNA.

But Cancelled on a cliffhanger after two seasons. Watching it means embracing incompleteness and that specific frustration.

Ghost in the Shell1995

The anime that helped inspire The Matrix. A fugitive cyborg questions what consciousness actually is while diving deeper into systems meant to control her. Visually extraordinary and genuinely prescient.

But The plot is deliberately confusing and the ending offers no catharsis. Some viewers find the pacing glacial; others love that about it.

Annihilation2018

A shimmer in reality that rewrites physics and identity itself. Strange, hypnotic, and genuinely mysterious. It trusts you to sit with confusion rather than solving everything.

But The explanation offered is technical and abstract rather than emotionally satisfying. Some find it frustratingly vague.

Perfect Blue1998

Both are about identities colliding—the person you think you are, the person the system wants you to be, and the possibility that there is no real you underneath. Both use their medium to make the simulation feel more vivid than reality.

Satoshi Kon's anime psychological thriller about a pop idol whose online and offline identities bleed into each other. A prescient meditation on simulation, surveillance, and fractured selfhood—made before social media existed, yet somehow perfectly captures our current moment. Visually inventive and genuinely disturbing.

But Animated but emphatically not for children. Contains graphic violence and sexual content. The narrative intentionally confuses dream and reality in ways some find tiresome rather than clever.

The Act of Killing2012

The deepest horror in The Matrix Resurrections is the question: what if we choose the false world because the truth is unbearable? The Act of Killing shows that choice made real—people voluntarily living inside the story they tell themselves, and how that functions as its own kind of trap.

Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary asks Indonesian death-squad leaders to reenact their own mass murders as movie scenes. A catastrophic rupture between fantasy and history, about how people construct narratives to avoid accountability. Horrifying and necessary. It makes The Matrix's philosophical games seem like a luxury.

But It documents real genocide and is psychologically brutal to watch. Not difficult for difficulty's sake—genuinely, morally difficult. Some viewers will find it unwatchable and they won't be wrong to.