Visual Effects
When The Matrix came out, it was an absolute revelation, and though the term is oft over-used these days, it was totally a game-changer. The Wachowskis helped popularise slow-motion "bullet-time" effects in cinema, such as when Trinity leaps into the air early on in the film, and the camera rotates around her before the action continues. The best moment comes with the fantastically iconic bullet-time sequence, in which Neo bends the laws of physics to avoid a hail of bullets. The film also meant that we had to sit through countless films and video games that attempted to ape this style, and for the most part failed. Inception features grand visual effects but in a far more restrained, low-key way, primarily to demonstrate how the physics of the dream-world can be manipulated by the dreamer, such as Ariadne and Cobb's trip around Paris early on, where the city literally folds in upon itself. Nolan, who tends to rely on practical stunt-work and visuals over CGI where possible, employs it only where absolutely necessary, and as a result the film has a wholly organic feel. Both films won the Academy Award for Visual Effects in their respective years, but due to the iconic nature of its delivery and the fact that it's been so influential since, we have to give the edge to The Matrix, as fab as Inception's work was.
WINNER: The Matrix