5 Best Keanu Reeves Sci-Fi Movies, Ranked

These days, Keanu Reeves' name is mostly synonymous with two franchises, "John Wick" and "The Matrix." Long gone is the time of the 1990s and the early 2000s when he was simultaneously doing blockbuster actioners, obscure dramas, and straightforward rom-coms, experimenting with his own range in the various roles he chose. Now, he still dabbles in comedies (like Aziz Ansari's "Good Fortune" or Jonah Hill's "Outcome") and questionable B-movies (like 2018's "Siberia") occasionally, but he almost completely transitioned out of sci-fi — save for his voice acting work in the video game franchise "Cyberpunk."

Interestingly enough, he had a short and rather underwhelming stint with sci-fi actioners before The Wachowski Sisters' trailblazer flick came along (namely, 1995's "Johnny Mnemonic" and 1996's "Chain Reaction"), but the success had yet to come. You'd think that after "The Matrix" became a sensation, the actor would be drowning in sci-fi roles, but the truth is that he kept his distance from those offers, other than returning as Neo in the sequels. As I was going through his filmography, it was actually surprising to learn that Reeves did very few sci-fis over his four-decade-plus acting career. So the ranking of his five best ones will hardly be a shock to anyone.

I already talked about Richard Linklater's ahead-of-its-time sci-fi animation, "A Scanner Darkly," here on BGR. Despite featuring an impressive cast with Reeves in the lead and Robert Downey Jr., Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, and Rory Cochrane in supporting roles, Linklater's feature was way too uncanny in the mid-aughts to be appreciated in the way it deserved to be. An adaptation of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick's 1977 novel of the same name, the story was already highbrow enough to narrow its potential target audience, and its director employing the rather unusual and little-seen interpolated rotoscope technique to turn the live-action footage into animation didn't help its chances.

"A Scanner Darkly" is a complex and challenging movie that takes place in a near-dystopian future where drug addiction runs rampant due to a new narcotic called Substance D. Reeves plays Bob Arctor, an undercover government agent, who is on a mission to infiltrate a small group of addicts, but in the process he gets addicted to D himself, which causes him to develop a split personality. Paranoia, hallucinations, and conspiracy theories fill this movie to the brim, but if you can connect to its wavelength, there's much more food for thought here than it first meets the eye.

Although Stephen Herek's 1989 sci-fi buddy comedy, "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," was a box office hit (making over $40 million against its $8.5 million budget), everybody tends to remember it as the epitome of cult classics. Two stupendously dumb metalheads in high school time travel with the guidance of a man, Rufus (George Carlin), sent from the distant future to help them nail their final history report and avoid getting kicked out of school.

After appearing in smaller and bigger roles in film and on TV, "Bill and Ted" was Reeves' breakout role that truly put him on the radar as a bankable movie star from then on (it's kind of unreal he was alongside Patrick Swayze in "Point Break" only two years later). While the concept of Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon's script might've been what sold the movie to the studio heads, it was the endearing characters that we viewers fell in love with instantly. Alex Winter and Reeves had a magnetic chemistry that gelled smoothly on screen, combined with an appealing rock-and-roll aesthetic and slacker humor that turned into a winning cocktail of late '80s cinema. So much so that Bill and Ted returned two more times in the next thirty years.

I know I'm going against the current by putting the sequel, "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey," higher than the original, but hear me out. While the first movie laid down the core structure, the rules, and the sense of humor in the Bill and Ted universe, "Bogus Journey" showed how to revel in them and take the lunacy to unexpected new heights (or depths, in this case). That, first and foremost, is thanks to the addition of William Sadler as the Grim Reaper (aka Death). Sadler delivers such a frenetically hilarious and goofy performance that he virtually steals the movie from under Winter and Reeves. Ironically, he's the beating heart of the sequel — delightfully diabolical, surprisingly shy, yet endlessly endearing.

With the plot taking the dudes to hell this time around instead of the past and future, the humor gets wilder and darker, allowing various zany creatures to appear and spice things up here. With a bigger budget ($20 million), the returning screenwriters (Matheson and Solomon) had a larger sandbox to play in, and they really let their imaginations run wild with a mixture of ideas. It's a shame the audience didn't take this one as well as the original (and neither did the critics), but "Bogus Journey" was still a modest success at the box office (making $38 million worldwide), even if it ultimately wound up as an underrated and somewhat dismissed entry in the trilogy.

The Wachowski Sisters' first sequel in their most successful franchise remains one of the best action films of the aughts. "The Matrix Reloaded" is a stylish, high-octane, carefully polished torpedo of a sci-fi blockbuster that effectively builds upon the first movie to turn the volume up to 11. The sequel might be less brainy and mind-bending than its predecessor, but it more than makes up for it with its relentless pace, impressive CGI, and elaborate fight choreography as well as the action-packed chase sequences. It's a hallmark of top-tier 2000s cinema, which pushed the limits of the medium to the max back then.

Employing Keanu Reeves' action-man appeal to an even greater extent, the Wachowskis turned him into an absolute swag machine and kung fu king, flying through the air like a gymnast, stopping bullets with his mind, and killing suited-up agents without breaking a sweat. Although the story isn't as dominant this time, he's still the kind of chosen one protagonist that you inherently identify with and root for till the end. And Reeves' blistering chemistry with co-star Carrie-Anne Moss is just as appealing and potent (if not more) as it was the first time they shared the screen. Without a doubt, this is one of the actor's greatest performances in a sci-fi for a reason, which cements his legacy as one of the coolest stars in movie history. Simply put: "The Matrix Reloaded" still rocks.

Blue and red pills. Illusion and reality. Leather coats and kung fu robes. What can be said about "The Matrix" that hasn't been said already? At the turn of the century, the Wachowskis' mind-boggling masterpiece spread like wildfire in pop culture, and its impact is still felt today. The 1999 movie was an original, pioneering, and ground-breaking piece of work with allure and intrigue. There was no escaping "The Matrix" fever for which Keanu Reeves' Neo became a poster boy — an avatar for viewers to enter a world of green and black replete with possibilities. It was clever, thought-provoking, and irresistibly cool, opening the door for ambitious new ideas to be fleshed out in filmmaking.

As a widespread phenomenon, "The Matrix" blew up the box office, making $463 million worldwide against its $63 million budget, and became an unlikely contender among blockbusters. It also gave immortality to a small group of actors (Reeves, Moss, Laurence Fishburne, and Hugo Weaving, primarily) who'll always have legendary status in Hollywood. I don't know if it's Reeves' best film and/or performance per se ("Point Break" comes close), but it's undoubtedly the greatest sci-fi movie he ever made — an achievement in the genre he'll likely never be able to repeat again. Not that he needs to, though; he's already one of the most recognizable stars Hollywood ever had.