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alt title(s): Matrix; The Animatrix 
"The Matrix has you."
A trilogy of sci-fi action movies starring Keanu Reeves as the hero, Laurence Fishburne as his mentor, Carrie Anne Moss as his Action Girl Love Interest, and Hugo Weaving as a recurring villain. The first film introduced the radical visual effect of Bullet Time, and is easily one of the most influential and oft-copied genre films since Star Wars.
The first film - The Matrix - begins in what appears to be the Present Day, but the audience discovers along with the protagonist, Neo, that it's an illusion created by sentient machines that have Turned Against Their Masters and taken over the world. The Matrix itself is a virtual world that humans are plugged into so that the machines can use their bio-electricity as power while keeping the humans complacent.
Neo is led to Morpheus, who teaches him the truth and recruits him to join the resistance movement against the machines. Because they now know that The Matrix is a false reality, they are no longer bound by inconvenient rules such as gravity while inside the Matrix. Their only opposing force are the Agents (programs who are able to bend the rules of the Matrix themselves), whose leader is Agent Smith. Neo finds his place as a foretold hero, and sets out to free mankind from The Matrix and win back the world.
The second film - The Matrix Reloaded - delves into the history of the Matrix itself. The war between machines and mankind in the real world is heating up and the heroes are searching for a series of wayward programs that can lead them to the machine source and stop them forever. As Neo learns the true history of the Matrix, he starts to doubt himself and their current plan. It is made all the more complicated when Agent Smith returns as an anomaly working on his own terms and with new, very much virus-like, abilities.
The third film - The Matrix Revolutions - follows up directly from the previous film and depicts everything going to hell as the machines reach Zion (the human's stronghold in the real world). Meanwhile, Neo sets in motion a plan to confront Agent Smith and end the war altogether.
The first movie was quite popular, and has proven to be one of those works of fiction that heavily influences nearly everything in its wake (the influx of superhero movies, for one thing, but also of symbolism-heavy Mind Screws like Lost). Your Mileage May Vary, but the second and third films are generally considered victims of Sequelitis. That said, in hindsight, the trilogy holds together much better as a whole when watched in one go; originally a four-year gap (!?!) existed between the first and second films.
Spin-offs, many of which contain plot explanations not included in the movies include:
- Video games - Enter The Matrix, The Matrix: Path of Neo, and the MMORPG The Matrix Online
- A graphic novel anthology of short stories
- The Animatrix, an anthology of nine short animated films from celebrated anime directors, including a two-parter (The Second Renaissance) that explains the backstory of the war between humans and machines that laid the foundation for the creation of the Matrix. The Animatrix is interesting in that it was much more well-received by critics than the sequel movies. It also sports a disclaimer that hilariously (and sadly) encapsulates why many tropers despise the existence of the Animation Age Ghetto.
See the quotes.
This film series provides examples of:
- Acceptable Targets: Albinos. The Wachowskis apparently don't care for people with white hair.
- Action Girl: Trinity and Niobe. By the end of the third film, Zee and her Vasquez-esque friend also qualify.
- Trinity's introduction in the first film is likely one of the most iconic action girl sequences ever.
- Action Survivor: Neo in the first movie. He grew out of it.
- After The End
- All There In The Manual: The series was well ahead of its time in this respect. Sadly, The World Was Not Ready.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: The Matrix is a merciful escape from the hideousness of the Real World, forced on humanity a la I, Robot. Belied by the Animatrix shorts, but still...
- Alternate DVD Commentary: Rifftrax; Adudathuda the last two ('cuz they liked the first one).
- Played with in the "Ultimate Matrix Collection" DVD set; instead of providing DVD commentaries of their own, the Wachowskis instead enlisted two philosophers who enjoyed the films and three film critics who hated the films, and let them create two different commentary tracks for all three films in the series (in the companion book for the set, the Wachowskis admitted that, had they the time and space, they would have had commentary tracks for philosophers who disliked the film and critics who loved them). This was done in an attempt to offer juxtaposing points of view with which the viewer "might triangulate their own position" on the films.
- Always Save The Girl: Addressed in Reloaded's climax.
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Matrix itself; not even the rebels know how ancient it is.
- The Apple Falls Far: Neo's cellphone.
- Ascended Fanboy: The Kid, though he was also The Scrappy for some fans.
- Ass Pull: Agent Smith's resurrection as a virus program.
- Author Appeal: One of the Wachowski brothers allegedly employs a full-time dominatrix. Suddenly Trinity's costumes make far more sense.
- Allegedly nothing. He has since divorced his wife while the dominatrix divorced her husband. The two of them are currently married and... you know, never mind.
- Bad Ass Longcoat: The first film is definitely a Trope Codifier. The second... not so much. The costume designers went a little too crazy; fortunately Neo's "Dress" vanished for most of the third film.
- Bad Blue Lighting: The real world. The Matrix has Bad Green Lighting.
- The first film originally didn't heavily feature the green "tint" during scenes that took place inside the Matrix; the remastered version of the film fixes that so that all three films share a similar look.
- Bald Black Leader Guy: Morpheus in the first film.
- Barrier Busting Blow
- Beyond The Impossible: It would be easier to list the times when this isn't the case.
- Big Applesauce: In the Animatrix short The Second Renaissance, you know the world is well and truly fucked when a machine takes the floor of the United Nations, gloats over their victory, and then nukes Manhattan.
- Big Bad: Agent Smith.
- Big Damn Heroes: Neo coming to save Morpheus and the Keymaker at the end of the freeway sequence in Reloaded, ie: the longest action sequence in the whole trilogy.
- Big Lipped Alligator Moment: The rave scene from Reloaded. Rumor has it that, originally, it and Revolutions were planned out as just one long movie. The aforementioned rave is what padding looks like.
- Big No: Agent Smith in the first movie, after Neo dives into his body and before he explodes.
- Blood From The Mouth: Signifies that a plugged-in human has been badly injured or killed inside the Matrix.
- Boring Invincible Hero: One of the common complaints about Reloaded and Revolutions.
- Played straight in the third movie's lobby shootout.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted. Neo and Smith get into a shootout in the subway and wind up with their guns at each other's head, only to discover that they're both out of rounds.
- Broken Masquerade: The world is not real.
- Bullet Time: The Trope Codifier.
- Car Fu: Many times throughout, starting when the Agents use a garbage truck to smash a phone booth while Trinity tries to dial out from it in the first film. When the Albino Twins try it on Morpheus in Reloaded, he gets his Crowning Moment Of Awesome as a result.
- Catapult Nightmare: Naturally, in the beginning of the first film. Particularly when Neo wakes up after the Agents implant the Tracking Device in him.
- Cat Scare
- Chained To A Railway: Sort of; Smith puts Neo in a wrestling hold and makes him watch an oncoming subway.
- Claremont Coefficient: Compare the number of characters and plot points introduced in Reloaded to those followed up on in Revolutions.
- Chase Scene: Once per film.
- Click Hello
- Clothing Damage: This borders on Fetish Fuel in the Animatrix short The Final Flight of the Osiris.
- Cluster F Bomb: Averted. The original script had characters spewing much more direct exposition and way, way more swearing. Admittedly, some of it would have been better ("Dodge this, motherfucker."), but this may be one of the few acceptable Bowdlerizations in modern history.
- The constant use of "shit" as a replacement of "fuck" makes it seem somewhat odd at times though.
- Conflict Killer: Agent Smith.
- Creepy Twins
- Crowning Moment Of Awesome: It has been argued that this series consists entirely of one Crowning Moment after another.
- The Wachowskis themselves get one for the special cinematic
 that plays before the final fight in Path of Neo.
- Cryptic Conversation: The movies are riddled with this. Anything Morpheus, The Oracle or The Architect says will be almost unassailably mysterious and vague.
- Cutscene Power To The Max: In Enter The Matrix.
- Cyber Punk Is Techno: Almost the entire soundtrack to everything in the franchise. That said, the score for the films is [still pretty awesome.
- Cyberspace
- Deus Est Machina: The machines were originally servants of man, rebelled (of course), then went on to try and give us a utopic imprisonment. It didn't take.
- Agent Smith does the same with the machines in turn.
- And, of course, there is a Machine character in the final film named "Deus Ex Machina".
- Distracted By The Sexy: The Woman in the Red Dress.
- Dodge This: The Trope Namer.
- Dream Within A Dream
- Dress Coded For Your Convenience
- Dystopia
- Epiphanic Prison: Most notably addressed in the Animatrix shorts World Record and Kid's Story.
- Enemy Chatter: In Path of Neo.
- Escort Mission: The entire car chase/fight scene over the Keymaker in Reloaded.
- Everybody Owns A Ford: General Motors was the vehicle provider, so the heroes nearly always drive high-end Cadillacs. Oldsmobiles and other GM makes fill out the background.
- Everybodys Dead Dave: In the first film.
- Every Car Is A Pinto: The Twins' SUV and the two semi trucks on the freeway in Reloaded.
- Everyone Calls Him Barkeep
- Everyone Is Jesus In Purgatory: "We do not know who was the first fan to decode the symbolism in the first movie..."
- Evil Albino: The Twins.
- Evil Laugh: Agent Smith after absorbing the Oracle, representing the randomness he gains.
- The Evils Of Free Will
- Expanded Universe
- Expy: Maybe not intentional, but Trinity is for all practical purposes Molly.
- Extreme Graphical Representation
- Eye Scream
- Fan Service/Disservice: Neo's sex scene with Trinity in Reloaded. Your Mileage May Vary on whether or not you enjoyed seeing more of Neo.
- First Installment Wins: The first film is a classic of its kind. The sequels tend to land in Dis Continuity...and that's being generous.
- Foreshadowing: Neo's conversations with Mr. Rinehart and Choi in the beginning of the first film.
- Freud Was Right: Seriously, watch this movie with an eye toward sexual imagery and you'll find it EVERYWHERE, and in the most awful ways. The most graphic stuff is found in the first film, but it's still very much there in the last two. Makes you wonder just what was on the Wachowskis' minds the whole time they were writing this.
- Fridge Brilliance: On the Fridge Logic below; net energy from humans is possible since the laws of thermodynamics as we know them are a property of the Matrix.
- This troper always assumed the machines used humans for entertainment. The whole "power plant" thing was just an excuse to keep the rebels playing with them. Unlikely for the first film, thought for the later two its one of the few explanations that makes any sense.
- Similarly, Smith's complaint in the first movie is that humans act like a virus. When Neo "kills" him, he returns and acts exactly like a virus.
- Cypher asks to be returned to the Matrix as someone important—"maybe an actor"—and doesn't want to remember anything. Smith assures "Mr. Reagan" that this will happen. This seems like just a throwaway joke until you remember that, by 1999 (the year being observed in the Matrix), Ronald Reagan was in the throes of Alzheimers' disease.
- Fridge Logic: Wouldn't humans be a really inefficient method of power since you'd have to put in more resources than you got out? Even the Hand Wave of fusion generators also being used as a power source makes you wonder why they didn't just use those for everything.
- Humans eat meat despite the fact that it takes more resources to make a cow than it does to just eat cow food. The nutritional advantages of cow can be substituted with vegetables, legumes, etc. Possibly the robots just love the flavor of human juice.
- It's been proposed the machines secretly try to follow the three laws of robotics, keeping as many people as possible alive.
- The original script had the Machines using the plugged-in humans as a massively parallel neural supercomputer, but it was changed to make it more accessible.
- In The Matrix Online, the Merovingian discovers that the human fields alone are barely enough to power both Machine City and the Matrix. It's implied that the Machines are also using a different power source and are keeping the humans alive for a different reason.
- Future Music: There is a rave scene in Reloaded that seems to go on forever.
- Gainax Ending: Arguable, but it is pretty strange.
- Gattaca Babies: Humans in the Matrix are essentially this.
- Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: Path of Neo ends... differently.
- Gnosticism: Even moreso than Christianity, the series reflects a deep and abiding Gnostic influence.
- Go Mad From The Revelation: Morpheus suggests that adults who are freed from the Matrix have an exceptionally hard time adjusting, which is why they don't normally free people after they reach a certain age.
- Gun Fu
- Hacker Cave
- Heroic Sacrifice
- Hey You Haymaker: Used a variation with a gun where Trinity shot an Agent point-blank while he was distracted by Neo's awesome dodging skills.
- High Octane Nightmare Fuel: Human harvest!
- In the Animatrix short The Second Renaissance, an android woman is beaten to death by a crowd of men. They tear off her clothes and beat the fake human skin off of her while her screams turn into a mechanical bleating.
- In the same short, the depiction of the forced extraction of a certain trooper from his powered armor. To give you some idea, he's torn from the armor by a machine tentacle wrapped around his waist. His arms and legs, however, remain locked in the armor. And he's screaming in pain and terror the whole time.
- The scene in which a robot grabs a woman's face and TEARS HER SKULL IN HALF TO REVEAL HER BRAIN. The brain then turns into some sort of diagram for the next scene.
- Generally speaking, Second Renaissance was full of Nightmare Fuel.
- The interrogation scene. That is all.
- Neo *himself* thought it was a nightmare. When Trinity sucks out the "bug," his reaction is "Holy shit! That thing was real?!?"
- How did we miss the fact that to access the Matrix, you have to stick a giant needle into your brain?
- Hollywood Tactics: Much virtual ink has been spilled complaining about the machines' strategy when invading Zion. Made doubly Wall Banger-ish when the Architect brags about how good they are at doing so.
- Homage: The directors pitched the idea to Joel Silver by showing him the 1995 Ghost In The Shell movie and saying "we want to do a live-action version." The style, themes, and action of the Matrix trilogy owe a lot to that movie.
- Hot Consort: Persephone, played by Monica Bellucci.
- Human Resources
- Implacable Man: Just about all the Agents, but Smith in particular.
- Implausible Fencing Powers: The Animatrix.
- Impossibly Cool Clothes: Apparently, one's Residual Self-Image includes cool hair and an awesome outfit. No exceptions. Even the nerdy Mouse is pretty pimp inside.
- Going by The Matrix Online, where the character-creation was your redpill selecting what their in-Matrix appearance would be, apparently that's just how they like it. You could look boring and normal...but then you'd never get any screen time.
- Improbable Aiming Skills
- Inside A Computer System: The main premise of the films.
- Its A Small Net After All
- Kung Fu Sonic Boom: During the final fight in Revolutions.
- Least Common Skin Tone: A notable aversion, especially once Zion enters the picture. The series also subverts The Smurfette Principle, so good on the Wachowskis.
- Lotus Eater Machine: The first iteration of the Matrix was too perfect, according to the Architect, which is why humans initially rejected it.
- Magnificent Bastard: Agent Smith.
- Made Of Iron: Every main character, and an explicit ability of the Agents.
- Malignant Tumor: Smith again.
- Mary Sue Topia: Smith explains why the Matrix isn't one.
- Meaningful Name: Morpheus, named after the Greek god of dreams.
- We're only going to point out one? This movie may have single-handedly popularized the "give every character a name that foreshadows what they do" trend in recent fiction. Essays have been written. Long ones.
- Neo and Cypher's "real" names are Thomas and Reagan. It's also possible that Cypher's first name could be Lewis, making him Lewis-Cypher.
- Memetic Mutation: The first film alone probably has a line-to-meme ratio second only to Star Wars, as films go.
- Meteor Move: How Smith weakened Neo enough to defeat him.
- Mexican Standoff: Trinity gets into one with the Merovingian's thugs when she gets tired of listening to his crap.
- MIB: The Agents
- Military Moonshiner
- Mind Rape: Bane, who has his entire brain overwritten by Smith.
- Mind Screw: Many, but most memorably the ending of the second movie.
- Missed Moment Of Awesome: Neo's memorable bullet dodge. You know the one I'm talking about. A missed moment because he got shot anyway.
- Getting grazed instead of ventilated is still impressive; do we really want them to make him invincible even earlier?
- Mission Control
- Mister Exposition: The Keymaker when explaining about the bomb-trapped building that houses the door to The Architect - and how to break into it.
- Mobstacle Course: Neo in the agent training program.
- Mood Lighting
- Moral Event Horizon: "I'm not so bad once you get to know me..."
- This troper thought "Cookies need love like everything does" was even more pants-shittingly evil.
- More Dakka: The minigun scene is just one example.
- My Name Is Inigo Montoya: At least a quadruple subversion in the final showdown.
- Neck Snap
- Never Bring A Knife To A Fistfight: In a Katanas Are Just Better attempt, Morpheus tries to fight an unarmed Agent with a sword. He barely manages to nick the guy's cheek and cut off his tie before the sword gets snapped, and Morpheus gets punted off the back of the moving truck.
- Neural Implanting: This is how everyone gets their abilities.
- Nigh Invulnerability: The Agents.
- Nightmare Fuel: Oh, God. If your stomach doesn't turn in the scenes where they make Neo's mouth disappear, causing him to panic understandably to shoot in the tracking bug, there's obviously something wrong with you.
- No Sell: Neo grows so strong by the end of the first movie that when he fights three enhanced agents alone in the second film, he casually quips "Huh, upgrades" when one of them blocks an attack.
- The Obi Wan: Morpheus
- Obfuscated Interface
- The Only Way They Will Learn: "No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."
- Ontological Mystery
- Oracular Urchin
- Orifice Invasion
- The Other Darrin: The Oracle.
- Paranoia Fuel: One of the first examples of the trope.
- Platonic Cave: The Matrix.
- Powers As Programs
- The Power Of Love
- Prophecy Twist
- Pursued Protagonist: Trinity in the first movie.
- Put Down Your Gun And Step Away
- Rage Against The Mentor: Neo and Morpheus at the Oracle's Cryptic Conversation.
- Red Pill Blue Pill: The Trope Namer.
- Rescued From Purgatory: Neo in Revolutions.
- The Reveal
- Ridiculously Human Robots: Many of the programs, but most notably The Oracle.
- Robot War: As shown in The Second Renaissance, this is what eventually led to the creation of the Matrix.
- Robots Enslaving Robots
- Roofhopping
- Rule Of Cool: It is This Troper's belief that how much one can do in the Matrix is directly proportional to how cool one looks doing it.
- Rule Of Symbolism: Practically takes refuge in it by the end.
- Samus Is A Girl: Trinity, from Neo's perspective.
- Scenery Gorn
- Screw Destiny: The focus of the second and third movies.
- Screaming Warrior: In the first one, Morpheus, when he busts out of the wall to fight an Agent so that Neo can escape, and also in Revolutions, where Mifune becomes the poster child of this trope.
- Seinfeld Is Unfunny: By the time Reloaded came out, the effects of the original were extremely dated.
- In hindsight, the effects sequence that has aged the least well from all three films is the second half of the "Burly Brawl" in Reloaded. It's one of the only times where they used Motion Capture, and the animation now looks terrible.
- In theaters, it likely looked okay. On DVD (and now especially Blu-Ray), it's much more noticeable.
- Self Fulfilling Prophecies: Sort of; The Oracle manipulates events by making prophecies, but the events that result from the prophecy are different from what the prophecy says. The reason it works out like this is that the Oracle does not say what will happen. She tells people what they need to hear in order for things to happen as she sees them.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The Architect. Holy God, the Architect.
- Shout Out: Lots of them. For example, Trinity: "The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to." => X Files' slogan, "The truth is out there".
- Significant Anagram: Neo<=>One. How incredibly subtle.
- Also, the train station sign Mobil <=> Limbo, as mocked by Rifftrax.
- Sincerest Form Of Flattery: The Wachowskis used the Ghost In The Shell comics and film to show prospective producers how they wanted the movie to look.
- Smith Will Suffice: The Trope Namer.
- Sneeze Of Doom
- Slow Electricity
- Reloaded: After the power station is destroyed (and later when Trinity turns off the power again), the blackout spreads slowly through the affected area.
- Revolutions: Inside the Oracle's apartment building, the overhead lights go off (with clunking sounds) as a warning of Agent Smith's approach.
- Spy Catsuit: Trinity
- Stairwell Chase
- Storming The Castle: Once a film.
- Story Breaker Power: Neo's "The One" package, in a nutshell.
- Take A Third Option: In the first movie.
- Take My Hand: Neo jumping off a chopper to get Morpheus.
- Take That: Easy to miss. Cypher wants to be an actor who remembers nothing. His real name? Mr. Reagan.
- If so, it was a cruel joke: in 1994, Ronald Reagan disclosed he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
- Or it was a reference to Reagan's repeated assertions that he couldn't remember critical details of the Iran-Contra scandal.
- This video from Path of Neo is arguably a Take That from the Wachowskis towards people who hated the sequels.
- There Are No Girls On The Internet: Neo is surprised Trinity is female. She says most people are.
- There Is No Try: "Stop trying to hit me and hit me!"
- Took A Level In Badass: Neo at the end of the first movie, and Smith in Revolutions.
- Throw Away Guns
- Tired Of Running: Neo with Smith in first movie.
- Tracking Device: The literal robotic bug the Agents plant inside Neo.
- The Treachery Of Images: "There is no spoon."
- Turned Against Their Masters
- Two Part Trilogy: The second and third films were filmed back-to-back with a Cliffhanger, and follow one plot line; allegedly, they were meant to be one long film.
- The Unchosen One: Neo, after he learns the prophecy was a lie and still continues to fight.
- Unnecessary Combat Roll: In the third movie, Morpheus, Trinity, and Seraph get into a fight with some guys who can bend gravity. Said guys do things like cartwheeling on the ceiling from cover to cover. They die.
- Unusual User Interface: The Matrix jacks for the pod-grown people.
- Used Future
- Use Your Head: Morpheus and Smith do this to each other.
- The Virus: The Agents overtaking mooks in the first film.
- Smith in the sequels, quite literally.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: "He's gonna pop!"
- The War Sequence: Path of Neo.
- Well Now What: By the middle of Reloaded, it's clear the authors have painted themselves into something of a corner.
- What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic
- What Measure Is A Mook: Rather uncomfortably applied to the security guards in the first film.
- What Measure Is A Non Human: This turns into a sticky issue once it is revealed that there are sentient programs, some of whom have ambiguous alignments, some of whom are on the humans' side (or just want to be left alone).
- White Void Room: The Construct.
- Wild Mass Guessing: Oh good Kung Fu Action Jesus, yes.
- Wuxia
- You Squared
- Your Mind Makes It Real: The Trope Namer; if someone is killed in the Matrix, they're dead for real.
- Your Other Left
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