Keanu Reeves Shares Which Of His Movies New Fans Should See First

Keanu Reeves name the three most "Keanu" movies!

By Tyler Pisapia | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

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Keanu Reeves understands that his film career may be too genre-encompassing and sprawling for the casual viewer. Fortunately, he’s boiled down his body of work into just three must-sees. The John Wick star sat down for a lengthy interview with Esquire in which he discussed the long and short of his career. At one point, it came up that he has made 68 movies in total, with a body of work that covers literally every genre there is in film. Just to make things difficult, the interviewer asked him to pick the top three movies he would recommend to someone who has never seen a Keanu Reeves work before — and the list may surprise you. 

After seriously struggling with the question for a moment, Keanu Reeves’ began his list with a bit of a cheat. He chose the first three Matrix movies as a single answer. The interviewer let it slide. It’s fair play after all since the actor was struggling enough with the question and was beyond gracious enough to answer it. He then selected The Devil’s Advocate and Point Break as his final choice for the sake of adding a selection that’s “action-y.” 

The first option makes total sense for Keanu Reeves to pick, especially right now. Not only did the movies help make him a household name, but he’s currently poised to star in the fourth installment of the franchise, scheduled to hit theaters on Dec. 22, just ahead of the New Year. According to the trailer, the film will acknowledge the fact that the story came to a pretty definitive end in 2003 and will address how Neo is thrust back into the world of science fiction and machine revolution after all these years. With a healthy mix of legacy, nostalgia and gratitude, it’s clear that The Matrix Resurrections has put the franchise on his brain. 

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However, it’s the other two movies in Keanu Reeves’ list that some may find surprising. After all, he’s left off his first big starring role in the action thriller Speed as well as his immensely popular comedic turn in the Bill And Ted franchise. Not to mention the fact that he would seemingly not tell a modern audience to take a peek at any one of the soon-to-be four John Wick movies. Instead, he directs them to the 1997 drama in which he starred alongside Al Pacino as an attorney who has never lost a case and finds himself swept up by a hot-shot New York City law firm run by [Spoiler Alert] Pacino’s character, who turns out to be the literal, Biblical devil. While the actor was likely excited to work alongside Pacino, it’s far from either actor’s best movie. Not only is Keanu Reeves’ Florida accent all over the road, but Pacino has been criticized in the past for being entirely too stereotypically Pacino-like in his performance. 

Finally, there is Point Break, his 1991 surf movie in which Keanu Reeves co-stars with Patrick Swayze as an undercover FBI agent who is hot to a collection of thrill-seeking bank robbers whose trademark move is to hit banks while wearing masks of former presidents. Again, while no one will say that Point Break isn’t an absolute Keanu Reeves’ classic, the fact that he opted for it over Speed, John Wick or even Constantine is surprising. Then again, screenwriter Peter W. Iliff admitted to SlashFilm that he has a script for a sequel that’s already written. Perhaps Point Break is on Keanu Reeves’ mind for the same reason that The Matrix trilogy is?