1. The Matrix - The Matrix didn't only make people ask themselves "what if all this was real?" but it struck a chord with people when it was released. The theme of The Matrix was to WAKE UP. View the world around you while questioning everything. Question authority, question the rules. It engaged people like very few movies since. The Matrix was just RIGHT, it felt relevent to the times, and still is. The movie was really released at the perfect time though, right before the dawn of a new decade, and it created a spark in the general ennui of movie going audiences, it gave them something to think about, in a legitimate manner. In addition to that its also just an amazing action film, one of the best even today, incredible choreography and effects. The Matrix is a Sci-Fi classic, period.
2. The Truman Show - Another movie that tackled the idea that everything around us isn't real. Only The Truman Show did so on a much more personal scale. What if we found the world we lived in was false..yet the world outside of it...was just more of the same. The movie didn't have the luxury of contrasting to a post-apocalyptic setting. As a drama, as a character study, and as a look into how what we percieve as real affects our development as people, The Truman Show was just a stunning, and underrated film.
3. Dark City - A stylish noir sci-fi film. Dark City differs from the Matrix in that it wishes to maintain its almost dreamlike and surreal feel throughout the movie. Dark City is about keeping audiences as in the dark as the main character, it makes us question not our own lives but that of its character or its world. I feel that Dark City is much more of a straight forward sci-fi thriller than The Matrix, and that is why I would rank it lower, despite it being a great film.
4. Inception - Although narratively incoherent and convoluted, Inception wants audiences to relate to the fact that in the end, our own salvation, our own ambitions are all that matter. If we've finally found what we've been searching for, does it really matter if we are awake or asleep? Overall, I find the thematic contents of Inception to be pretty damn terrible, and its ideas are ones that I cannot suscribe to at all. And while The Matrix naturally allowed audiences to question reality through the world they had just seen on the screen, Chris Nolan only accomplishes this through a parlor trick. Of coure there is only one natural outcome to Inception, but with that final shot, Nolan dangles the carrot in front of the audience, and immediately pulls it away from them. Would people really have been discussing what was real and coming up with one inane theory after another if the movie ended as its obviously supposed to? I don't believe so. The worst part of Inception is that to justify many of the ridiculous explanations of it being a dream, or the ending being a dream, etc, is that all of these scenarios stretch the credibilty of the script to almost comical levels. The movies script only works if the ending is reality, thus the forced ambiguity is nothing more than a cheap ploy. This movie doesn't even deserve to be mentioned along The Matrix.
