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1999 Wachowski Brothers movie about simulated reality
The Matrix

The Matrix is a 1999 science fiction action film written and directed by The Wachowskis and starring Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano. It depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called "the Matrix", created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. Cybercriminal and computer programmer Neo learns this truth and is drawn into a rebellion against the machines, which involves other people who have been freed from the "dream world".

Cast and Crew

Hugo WeavingAgent Smith
The WachowskisDirector, screenwriter (as The Wachowski Brothers)

Web Pages

The Matrix (1999) - IMDb
A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Articles

War Is Peace and Other Things the Government Wants You to Believe [PDF], by Sheldon Richman, 8 Jun 2008
Transcript of speech given at The Future of Freedom Foundation's 2008 conference, “Restoring the Republic: Foreign Policy & Civil Liberties”, including audience questions
The state has to propagate a lot of myths ... [T]here've been movies—there's been a lot of fiction, and movies and novels, that try to make this point. I don't know if most people get it. But think about The Matrix, for example. There's a great allegory about how states operate. They made it very literal, where they actually created reality by basically hooking people up to these elaborate technological devices and making people, in effect, imagine the reality they want you to imagine. And of course, some people are able to break through. And it's a great story for that reason.

Reviews

Imagine a Boot Stamping on Your Face, by John W. Whitehead, 7 Jul 2017
Discusses what the author considers a police state in 2017 United States and provides short reviews of 15 films that "may be the best representation of what we now face as a society"
The story centers on a computer programmer Thomas A. Anderson, secretly a hacker known by the alias 'Neo,' who begins a relentless quest to learn the meaning of 'The Matrix'—cryptic references that appear on his computer. Neo's search leads him to Morpheus who reveals the truth that the present reality is not what it seems and that Anderson is actually living in the future—2199. Humanity is at war against technology which has taken the form of intelligent beings, and Neo is actually living in The Matrix, an illusionary world that appears to be set in the present in order to keep the humans docile and under control.

Videos


Matrix Trailer HD (1999), 31 Mar 1999

The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "The Matrix" as of 19 Oct 2018, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.