25 Greatest Warner Bros Movies Ever

In light of the sequels, it's easy to forget that The Matrix is a hell of a film. It remains the single greatest high concept sci-fi movie of the 21st century - with a simple, compelling idea (what if the world wasn't real) driven by fundamental humanist control anxiety that is fleshed out with great genre flourishes, ludicrously good effects and great characters.

Keanu Reeves plays the everyman proxy just subtly enough, Laurence Fishburne is regal, but simmers with power and Hugo Weaving is an archetypal snake-like G-Man. On their shoulders the concept succeeds with aplomb, even despite some pretty on-the-nose observations about religion and free-will.

The effects are often copied, but you have to return to the source to truly appreciate how stunning they were - particularly at the time of release - with bullet time briefly reinventing how cinema shot action. That's no small feat.

Even the sequels are only mostly derailed by their own attempts to outdo the first: their only crime being enthusiasm and good intentions.