The film popularized terms such as the red pill, and popularised a visual effect known as "bullet time", in which a character's heightened perception is represented by allowing the action within a shot to progress in slow motion while the camera appears to move through the scene at normal speed.

The Matrix opened in theaters in the United States on March 31, 1999, to widespread acclaim from critics, who praised its innovative visual effects, action sequences, cinematography and entertainment value.

Neo witnesses countless inert humans similarly encased and tended to by machines before he is ejected from the facility and rescued by Morpheus aboard the hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar.

After Lorenzo di Bonaventura, the president of production of the company at the time, read the script, he decided to buy rights to it and included two more pictures, Bound and The Matrix, in the contract.

[40] In early 1997, the Wachowskis had Reeves read Simulacra and Simulation, Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, and Dylan Evans's ideas on evolutionary psychology even before they opened up the script,[12] and eventually he was able to explain all the philosophical nuances involved.

[42] Prior to the pre-production, Reeves underwent a two-level fusion of his cervical (neck) spine due to spinal cord compression from a herniated disc ("I was falling over in the shower in the morning").

Reeves's injury and his insufficient training with wires prior to filming meant he was unable to perform the triple kicks satisfactorily and became frustrated with himself, causing the scene to be postponed.

Filming the scene when Neo slammed Smith into the ceiling, Chad Stahelski, Reeves's stunt double, sustained several injuries, including broken ribs, knees and a dislocated shoulder.

[68] This code uses a custom typeface designed by Simon Whiteley,[38] which includes mirror images of half-width kana characters and Western Latin letters and Arabic numerals.

The actors needed to perform martial art actions in their costume, hang upside-down without people seeing up their clothing, and be able to work the wires while strapped into the harnesses.

His music videos experimented with a different type of technique called view-morphing and it was just part of the beginning of uncovering the creative approaches toward using still cameras for special effects.

[86][87] Manex also handled creature effects, such as Sentinels and machines in real world scenes; Animal Logic created the code hallway and the exploding Agent at the end of the film.

The ripple effect in the latter scene was created digitally, but the shot also included practical elements, and months of extensive research were needed to find the correct kind of glass and explosives to use.

The method of using real photographs of buildings as texture for 3D models eventually led the visual effect team to digitize all data, such as scenes, characters' motions and expressions.

The site's critical consensus reads, "Thanks to the Wachowskis' imaginative vision, The Matrix is a smartly crafted combination of spectacular action and groundbreaking special effects".

[116] Philip Strick commented in Sight & Sound, if the Wachowskis "claim no originality of message, they are startling innovators of method," praising the film's details and its "broadside of astonishing images".

[121] Maitland McDonagh said in her review for TV Guide, the Wachowskis' "through-the-looking-glass plot... manages to work surprisingly well on a number of levels: as a dystopian sci-fi thriller, as a brilliant excuse for the film's lavish and hyperkinetic fight scenes, and as a pretty compelling call to the dead-above-the-eyeballs masses to unite and cast off their chains...

"[122] Salon's reviewer Andrew O'Hehir acknowledged that although The Matrix is in his view a fundamentally immature and unoriginal film ("It lacks anything like adult emotion... all this pseudo-spiritual hokum, along with the over-ramped onslaught of special effects—some of them quite amazing—will hold 14-year-old boys in rapture, not to mention those of us of all ages and genders who still harbor a 14-year-old boy somewhere inside"), he concluded, "as in Bound, there's an appealing scope and daring to the Wachowskis' work, and their eagerness for more plot twists and more crazy images becomes increasingly infectious.

The Matrix seemed fresh and cool and visually breathtaking; making wonderful, intelligent use of CGI to augment the on-screen action, striking a perfect balance of the real and the hyperreal.

[134][135] The Matrix also received BAFTA awards for Best Sound and Best Achievement in Special Visual Effects, in addition to nominations in the cinematography, production design and editing categories.

The Matrix draws from and alludes to numerous cinematic and literary works, and concepts from mythology, religion and philosophy, including the ideas of Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosticism, Hinduism and Judaism.

[143][144] The pods can be seen in Welcome to Paradox Episode 4 "News from D Street" from a 1986 short story[145] of the same name by Andrew Weiner which aired on September 7, 1998, on the SYFY Channel and has a remarkably similar concept.

As in the film, the Matrix of that series (introduced in the 1976 serial The Deadly Assassin) is a massive computer system which one enters using a device connecting to the head, allowing users to see representations of the real world and change its laws of physics; but if killed there, they will die in reality.

[167][168][169][170] In The Matrix, a copy of Jean Baudrillard's philosophical work Simulacra and Simulation, which was published in French in 1981, is visible on-screen as "the book used to conceal disks",[171][40] and Morpheus quotes the phrase "desert of the real" from it.

[172][174] Some interpreters of The Matrix mention Baudrillard's philosophy to support their claim "that the [film] is an allegory for contemporary experience in a heavily commercialized, media-driven society, especially in developed countries".

[178][171] In addition to Baudrillard and Ettinger, the Wachowskis were also significantly influenced by Kevin Kelly's Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems, and the Economic World, and Dylan Evans's ideas on evolutionary psychology.

[32] Stephen Dowling from the BBC noted that The Matrix's success in taking complex philosophical ideas and presenting them in ways palatable for impressionable minds might be its most influential aspect.

[214] In March 2017, Warner Bros. was in early stages of developing a relaunch of the franchise with Zak Penn in talks to write a treatment and interest in getting Michael B. Jordan attached to star.

[215] On August 20, 2019, Warner Bros. Pictures Group chairman Toby Emmerich officially announced that a fourth Matrix film was in the works, with Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss set to reprise their roles as Neo and Trinity, respectively.

In September 2022, Danny Boyle was announced to be directing and producing a live immersive dance production of the film, entitled Free Your Mind, which debuted in October 2023 at the Aviva Studios in Manchester, England.