The Best Keanu Reeves Films, Ranked

Directly addressing those who say he only ever plays himself, the Hawaiian-born star of Chain Reaction expertly inhabited the role of ‘Keanu Reeves’ for a hilarious cameo in this rom-com of reconnecting childhood sweethearts. Playing yourself as a Hollywood star with some dickish pretentions but endearing yourself to the world even more while you do so? That is acting.

Yes, he murders the English accent in this movie, fighting Vlad The Impaler for the soul of his fiancée. And yet: his bewildered, not-quite-all-there demeanour – the very shtick his critics would beat him with – actually serves the role brilliantly. (This movie, like Keanu, has aged superbly: perhaps because it was directed by master winemaker Francis Ford Coppola?)

The top turn among his high-schoolers and pre-adults (though Parenthood runs it close) is the time-travelling So Cal surfhead who is also, with his pal Bill, the musical saviour of the universe. The goofy charm exuded by Keanu and co-star Alex Winter extended into two sequels and still, with this plus John Wick and The Matrix, no other major movie star can boast a trilogy of trilogies.

Depending on mood, this is a Zen insight into Why Men Do Bad Things or a Nineties action confection that’s, to quote a supporting character’s summing-up of Keanu’s rookie FBI agent Johnny Utah, “young, dumb and full of cum.” Director Kathryn Bigelow had to fight to cast KR. He responded by giving his absolute all in prep and on screen, something colleagues continue to praise him for.

River Phoenix won awards but Keanu is also on impressive form in this indie classic that in its day was controversial for its matter-of-fact treatment of sex work and homosexuality. The two men hustle across the Pacific Northwest and holiday in Italy, with Phoenix’s Mike carrying a torch for Keanu’s Scott. Their love story is real and tender; the two actors’ handling of it equally masterful.

Making Diane Keaton think twice about falling for Jack Nicholson, and doing so convincingly, is great movie-work by any standard, and Keanu pulls it off here with aplomb. He has the same sort of unchiselled leading-man charisma that also allows Tom Hanks and Paul Rudd to be plausibly vulnerable in rom-com scenarios.

Special K is the cop who must keep a bus above 50mph otherwise it will explode. It’s B-movie stuff at an A+ level, thanks in the main to Action Keanu and RomCom Keanu meshing perfectly to share the spotlight with Sandra Bullock in her starmaking role. The palpable Bullock-Reeves (Sandranu?) chemistry is also on display in The Lake House (2006).

This bleak, brilliant teen drama has an affecting and humanising centre in the shape of Keanu’s Matt: sleeveless denim jacket, heart of gold, shitty stepdad, raging hormones. He was 22 playing 17, so perhaps not too hard to get back in that zone between childhood and manhood, but everything about his ungainly gait, his anger and his fear feels 100 per cent real.

As Neo, a man who discovers that a) he’s living in a simulated reality created by AI to harvest his bio-electricity from which b) only he can free himself and possibly humankind, Keanu added martial artistry to his leading man repertoire. “I know kung fu,” says Neo. “I only know movie kung fu,” Keanu said later. Regardless, the game changed for cinema and our boy with this one.

The immutable assassin calls on every last drop of will, and calls in all his favours, to end the bloodshed that hounds him. Keanu’s physicality and dead-eyed sincerity are on full power in a film of relentless, exhilarating action set pieces, including several in Paris that ramp up to a climax rich in the lore and gunplay that are key to the Wick franchise’s success.