Keanu Reeves’ Best Movies: A Decade-By-Decade Breakdown

Keanu Reeves is one of the best-loved and most popular actors working today, whose career has included action, comedy, and drama. While Reeves first got his start playing a slacker teen, before long, he proved his talents as a major action hero whose incredible franchises stand as some of the most acclaimed series ever made.

The best Reeves movies are scattered throughout his career, and each decade since the 1980s offers interesting and unique roles. With highly quotable Reeves movies holding an important place in popular culture, it’s a testament to his range that he’s equally comfortable with deadpan comedy, intense dramatic performances, or thrilling action sequences.

1980s: Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989)

Keanu Reeves achieved his breakout role as one-half of the slacker duo in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which told the story of two underperforming high school students who travel through time to assemble historical figures. With a desperate need to pass their show-and-tell presentation, the pair encounters everyone from Abraham Lincoln to Socrates.

As Ted “Theodore” Logan, Reeves played a guitar-loving teen who longs to become a rock star with his best friend Bill S. Preston, Esq., played by Alex Winter. While these two knuckleheaded youngsters might seem like harmless slackers, they’re destined to become the future saviors of mankind, with their music eventually uniting the world.

Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure was a cult favorite that showcased Reeves’ talents for playing a clueless everyman, yet his movie-star charisma was on full display right from the start. The film was such a success that Reeves and Winter reunited for Bogus Journey and even reprised their roles in a nostalgia-filled legacy sequel in 2020.

1990s: The Matrix (1999)

The 1990s were a great decade for Keanu Reeves, as he moved away from the slacker persona that made him famous in Bill & Ted and started to prove his talents as an action hero in classics like Point Break and Speed. However, it was just at the end of the decade that Reeves gained his career-defining role in The Matrix.

Released just on the precipice of the new millennium, The Matrix was an era-defining film that was elevated by Reeves’ incredible portrayal of the hero Neo. Depicting a dystopian landscape where humanity was trapped inside a simulated reality, The Matrix addressed deeply philosophical questions around the nature of existence itself.

Whether it was its incredible, choreographed action sequences, which popularized the bullet-time visual technique, The Matrix blended allegorical storytelling with impressive stuntwork. With a cyberpunk style that has become truly iconic, The Matrix is the film for which Reeves will be forever remembered.

2000s: Constantine (2005)

Several years before the Marvel Cinematic Universe had even started, Keanu Reeves embraced comic book adaptations with the Hellblazer adaptation Constantine. This saw Reeves play the cynical exorcist John Constantine, a man with the ability to perceive half-angels and half-demons and travel between the realms of Heaven and Hell.

Constantine was a unique spin on the comic’s mythos that didn’t fully connect with critics at the time and received mixed reviews. However, the reputation of Constantine has only grown in the years since, and it’s earned its status as a true cult classic. Featuring one of Reeves’ very best performances, the neo-noir stylings of the film stand out.

The truth is that Constantine was underrated at the time, and that its unique depiction of the supernatural and spiritual worlds felt totally original. Reeves was the perfect choice to play John Constantine, as his zen-like presence and calm demeanor added an air of gravitas and mystery to his characterization.

2010s: John Wick (2014)

While Keanu Reeves remained a major movie star throughout the 2000s, it always looked like Neo in The Matrix would be the one role he was always tied to. However, with John Wick, Reeves gained a new action franchise that could actually rival that series in terms of cultural impact and mainstream appeal.

As the retired former assassin title character, John Wick leaned into many action movie tropes we had already seen in releases like Taken and took them to a whole other level. With sleek worldbuilding and exceptional martial arts fight sequences, John Wick was elevated from a modest revenge thriller into a genuine phenomenon.

Reeves’ mix of stoicism and vulnerability made Wick an intensely interesting character, and viewers were immediately hooked into this criminal underworld of deadly assassins and complex regulations. John Wick revitalized Reeves’ career in the 2010s, and it hasn’t slowed down since.

2020s: John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Although Keanu Reeves has taken on several notable roles in the 2020s, from reprising Neo in the divisive Matrix Resurrections to voicing Shadow in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, one role continues to define this era of his career. The John Wick series remains his standout achievement in the 2020s, cementing him as a modern action legend and cultural icon.

John Wick is one of the few franchises that gets better with each installment, and John Wick: Chapter 4 upped the ante even further with epic fight sequences and complex character dynamics. The world-building of John Wick has always been a major part of its appeal, and by this release, audiences were well versed in the workings of the Continental.

With Wick on a quest for revenge against the High Table members who left him for dead, the way each John Wick movie led into the next added an overall sense of continuity that’s missing from most action franchises. It’s a testament to Keanu Reeves’ enduring appeal that he’s maintained his status as a leading action hero since the early 1990s.