A computer hacker learns from mysterious rebels about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers.

Morpheus: This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
Agent Smith: I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You're a plague and we are the cure.
Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.
Morpheus: What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.
Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?
Mouse: To deny our own impulses is to deny the very thing that makes us human.
Morpheus: Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize just as I did that there's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole?
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know *exactly* what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is?
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.
[last lines]
Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.
Cypher: You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak]
Cypher: Ignorance is bliss.
Trinity: Dodge this.
Agent Smith: Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Oracle: You're cuter than I thought. I can see why she likes you.
Neo: Who?
Oracle: Not too bright, though.
Morpheus: You have to let it all go, Neo. Fear, doubt, and disbelief. Free your mind.
Neo: What are you trying to tell me? That I can dodge bullets?
Morpheus: No, Neo. I'm trying to tell you that when you're ready, you won't have to.
Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
Morpheus: You've never used them before.
Agent Smith: Did you know that the first Matrix was designed to be a perfect human world? Where none suffered, where everyone would be happy. It was a disaster. No one would accept the program. Entire crops were lost. Some believed we lacked the programming language to describe your perfect world. But I believe that, as a species, human beings define their reality through suffering and misery. The perfect world was a dream that your primitive cerebrum kept trying to wake up from. Which is why the Matrix was redesigned to this: the peak of your civilization.
Tank: So what do you need? Besides a miracle.
Neo: Guns. Lots of guns.
Morpheus: What are you waiting for? You're faster than this. Don't think you are, know you are. Come on. Stop trying to hit me and hit me.
Morpheus: I'm trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You're the one that has to walk through it.
Morpheus: Do you believe in fate Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because i don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Neo: I thought it wasn't real
Morpheus: Your mind makes it real
Neo: If you're killed in the matrix, you die here?
Morpheus: The body cannot live without the mind
Agent Smith: You hear that Mr. Anderson?... That is the sound of inevitability... It is the sound of your death... Goodbye, Mr. Anderson...
Neo: My name... is Neo.
Morpheus: The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
[Neo's eyes suddenly wander towards a woman in a red dress]
Morpheus: Were you listening to me, Neo? Or were you looking at the woman in the red dress?
Neo: I was...
Morpheus: [gestures with one hand] Look again.
[the woman in the red dress is now Agent Smith, pointing a gun at Neo's head; Neo ducks]
Morpheus: Freeze it.
[Everybody and everything besides Neo and Morpheus freezes in time]
Neo: This... this isn't the Matrix?
Morpheus: No. It is another training program designed to teach you one thing: if you are not one of us, you are one of them.
Oracle: I'd ask you to sit down, but, you're not going to anyway. And don't worry about the vase.
Neo: What vase?
[Neo turns to look for a vase, and as he does, he knocks over a vase of flowers, which shatters on the floor]
Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry...
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know?
Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything?
Neo: I know kung fu.
Morpheus: [eyeing him, hand on chin] Show me.
Trinity: Neo... nobody has ever done this before.
Neo: That's why it's going to work.
[Neo sees a black cat walk by them, and then a similar black cat walk by them just like the first one]
Neo: Whoa. Déjà vu.
[Everyone freezes right in their tracks]
Trinity: What did you just say?
Neo: Nothing. Just had a little déjà vu.
Trinity: What did you see?
Cypher: What happened?
Neo: A black cat went past us, and then another that looked just like it.
Trinity: How much like it? Was it the same cat?
Neo: It might have been. I'm not sure.
Morpheus: Switch! Apoc!
Neo: What is it?
Trinity: A déjà vu is usually a glitch in the Matrix. It happens when they change something.
Morpheus: Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
Morpheus: The pill you took is part of a trace program. It's designed to disrupt your input/output carrier signal so we can pinpoint your location.
Neo: What does that mean?
Cypher: It means fasten your seat belt Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye.
Trinity: I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question that drives us, Neo. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.
Neo: What is the Matrix?
Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.
Tank: Here you go, buddy; "Breakfast of Champions."
Mouse: If you close your eyes, it almost feels like you're eating runny eggs.
Apoc: Yeah, or a bowl of snot.
Mouse: Do you know what it really reminds me of? Tasty Wheat. Did you ever eat Tasty Wheat?
Switch: No, but technically, neither did you.
Mouse: That's exactly my point. Exactly. Because you have to wonder: how do the machines know what Tasty Wheat tasted like? Maybe they got it wrong. Maybe what I think Tasty Wheat tasted like actually tasted like oatmeal, or tuna fish. That makes you wonder about a lot of things. You take chicken, for example: maybe they couldn't figure out what to make chicken taste like, which is why chicken tastes like everything.
Apoc: Shut up, Mouse.
Morpheus: What is the Matrix? Control. The Matrix is a computer-generated dream world built to keep us under control in order to change a human being into this.
[holds up a Duracell battery]
Neo: No, I don't believe it. It's not possible.
Morpheus: I didn't say it would be easy, Neo. I just said it would be the truth.
Trinity: Neo, I'm not afraid anymore. The Oracle told me that I would fall in love and that that man... the man that I loved would be The One. So you see, you can't be dead. You can't be... because I love you. You hear me? I love you.
[Trinity kisses Neo; Neo's vital signs return]
Trinity: Now get up!
Agent Smith: It seems that you've been living two lives. One life, you're Thomas A. Anderson, program writer for a respectable software company. You have a social security number, pay your taxes, and you... help your landlady carry out her garbage. The other life is lived in computers, where you go by the hacker alias "Neo" and are guilty of virtually every computer crime we have a law for. One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.
Morpheus: Throughout human history, we have been dependent on machines to survive. Fate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.
Agent Smith: I hate this place. This zoo. This prison. This reality, whatever you want to call it, I can't stand it any longer. It's the smell, if there is such a thing. I feel saturated by it. I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it.
Agent Smith: You're empty.
Neo: So are you.
Agent Smith: We're willing to wipe the slate clean, give you a fresh start. All that we're asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice.
Neo: Yeah. Well, that sounds like a pretty good deal. But I think I may have a better one. How about, I give you the finger
[He does]
Neo: and you give me my phone call.
Morpheus: How did I beat you?
Neo: You... you're too fast.
Morpheus: Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place? Do you think that's air you're breathing now?
Oracle: Do you know what that means?
[points to a banner]
Oracle: It means know thy self. I wanna tell you a little secret, being the one is just like being in love. No one needs to tell you you are in love, you just know it, through and through.
Neo: What are you doing?
Trinity: I'm going with you.
Neo: No you're not.
Trinity: No? Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that Morpheus means more to me than he does to you. I believe if you are really serious about rescuing him, you are going to need my help. And since I am the ranking officer on this ship, if you don't like it... I believe you can go to hell. Because you're not going anywhere else. Tank, load us up.
Tank: We're supposed to start with these operation programs first. That's major boring shit. Let's do something a little more fun. How about... combat training.
Neo: Ju jitsu? I'm gonna learn Ju jitsu.
[Tank winks and loads the program]
Neo: Holy shit!
Tank: Hey Mikey, I think he likes it. How about some more?
Neo: Hell, yes. Hell yeah.
Neo: Mr. Wizard. Get me the hell out of here.
Trinity: My name's Trinity.
Neo: *The* Trinity? Who cracked the IRS d-base?
Trinity: That was a long time ago.
Neo: Jesus...
Trinity: What?
Neo: I just thought... you were a guy.
Trinity: Most guys do.
Cypher: I know what you're thinking, 'cause right now I'm thinking the same thing. Actually, I've been thinking it ever since I got here: Why oh why didn't I take the BLUE pill?
Tank: Neo, this has to be done.
Neo: Does it? I don't know. This can't be just coincidence. It can't be.
Tank: What are you talking about?
Neo: The Oracle. She told me this would happen. She told me that I would have to make a choice.
Trinity: What choice?
[Neo walks away]
Trinity: What are you doing?
Neo: I'm going in.
Trinity: No, you're not.
Neo: I have to.
Trinity: Neo, Morpheus sacrificed himself so we could get you out. There is no way you're going back in.
Neo: Morpheus did what he did because he believes something I'm not.
Trinity: What?
Neo: I'm not the one, Trinity. The Oracle hit me with that too.
Trinity: No, you have to be.
Neo: I'm sorry, I'm not. I'm just another guy.
Trinity: No, Neo, that's not true. It can't be true.
Neo: Why?
[no response, Neo walks away again]
Tank: Neo, this is loco. They've got Morpheus in a military-controlled building. Even if you somehow got inside, those are agents holding him. Three of them. I want Morpheus back too but what you're talking about is suicide.
Neo: I know that's what it looks like, but it's not. I can't explain to you why it's not. Morpheus believes in something and he was ready to give his life, I understand that now. That's why I have to go.
Tank: Why?
Neo: Because I believe in something.
Trinity: What?
Neo: I believe I can bring him back.
[Neo walks through a metal detector in the lobby and is approached by a security guard after it goes off]
Security guard: Could you please remove any metallic items you may be carrying, keys, loose change...
[Neo opens his trench coat to reveal dozens of guns underneath]
Security guard: Holy shit!
[Neo knocks the guard down and shoots the other guards]
Neo: Yeah. That sounds like a really good deal. But I got a better one. How about... I give you the finger... and you give me my phone call?
Agent Smith: Mr. Anderson... you disappoint me.
Neo: You can't scare me with this Gestapo crap. I know my rights. I want my phone call.
Agent Smith: Tell me, Mr. Anderson... what good is a phone call... if you're unable to speak?
Neo: What is happening to me?
Morpheus: You are the One, Neo. You see, you may have spent the last few years looking for me, but I have spent my entire life looking for you.
Morpheus: Welcome to the desert of the real.
Morpheus: [to Neo who is choosing the red pill] Remember... all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.
Morpheus: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he's expecting to wake up. Ironically, this is not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: 'Cause I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind - driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Morpheus: Welcome to the real world.
Oracle: OK, now I'm supposed to say, "Hmm, that's interesting, but... " then you say...
Neo: ..."but what?"
Oracle: But... you already know what I'm going to tell you.
Neo: I'm not The One.
Oracle: Sorry, kid. You got the gift, but it looks like you're waiting for something.
Neo: What?
Oracle: Your next life, maybe. Who knows? That's the way these things go.
[Neo receives a cell phone in an overnight-mail envelope. As soon as he's holding it, it rings]
Neo: Hello?
Morpheus: Hello, Neo. Do you know who this is?
Neo: Morpheus?
Morpheus: Yes. I've been looking for you, Neo. I don't know if you're ready to see what I want to show you, but unfortunately, you and I have run out of time. They're coming for you, Neo, and I don't know what they're going to do.
Neo: Who's coming for me?
Morpheus: Stand up and see for yourself.
Neo: What, right now?
Morpheus: Yes, now.
Morpheus: Free your mind.
[Morpheus jumps from one building to another a long distance away]
Neo: Whoa.
Trinity: Please Neo, you have to trust me.
Neo: Why?
Trinity: Because you have been down there Neo, you know that road, you know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be.
Morpheus: We've survived by hiding from them, by running from them. But they are the gatekeepers. They are guarding all the doors, they are holding all the keys. Which means that sooner or later, someone is going to have to fight them.
Neo: Someone?
Morpheus: I've seen an agent punch through a concrete wall; men have emptied entire clips at them and hit nothing but air; yet, their strength, and their speed, are still based in a world that is built on rules. Because of that, they will never be as strong, or as fast, as *you* can be.
Cypher: All I see now is blonde, brunette, redhead.
Morpheus: What is "real"? How do you define "real"?
Tank: Door on your left.
[Neo goes right]
Tank: Your other left.
[on the war that devastated the Real World]
Morpheus: We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we do know it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power. It was believed they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun.
Morpheus: To your left there is a window: open it... use the scaffold to get to the roof.
Neo: No way. No way. This is crazy.
Morpheus: There are two ways out of that building: one is that scaffold, the other is in their custody. You take a chance either way: I leave it to you.
Morpheus: You've been living in a dream world, Neo.
Cypher: Look into his eyes. Those big pretty eyes and tell me... Yes or no?
[looks at Neo, tears slightly visible in her eyes]
Trinity: Yes.
Cypher: No! I don't believe it!
Tank: Believe it or not, you piece of shit, you're still gonna burn!
Neo: You ever have that feeling where you're not sure if you're awake or still dreaming?
Choi: All the time. It's called mescaline, it's the only way to fly.
Trinity: What's he doing?
Morpheus: He's beginning to believe.
Neo: Okey dokey... free my mind. Right, no problem, free my mind, free my mind, no problem, right...
Neo: What did she tell you?
Morpheus: That I would find the One.
Agent Smith: Lieutenant, you were given specific orders.
Lieutenant: I'm just doing my job. You give me that "juris-my-dick-tion" crap... you can cram it up your ass.
Switch: Our way... or the highway.
Neo: I used to eat there. Really good noodles.
[Agent Smith has shot Neo with several bullets]
Agent Smith: Check him.
[Agent Brown feels Neo's pulse]
Agent Brown: He's gone.
Agent Smith: Good bye, Mr Anderson.
[Cypher has betrayed the crew and is pulling their plugs one by one]
Cypher: By the way, if you have something terribly important to say to Switch, I'd suggest you say it now.
Trinity: Oh no, please don't...
Switch: Not like this. Not like this.
[Cypher pulls her plug]
Cypher: Too late.
Trinity: God damn you Cypher!
Cypher: Don't hate me Trinity... I'm just the messenger.
Rhineheart: You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken.
Cypher: No. I don't believe it.
Tank: Believe it or not, you piece of shit, you're still gonna burn.
Agent Smith: As you can see, we've had our eye on you for some time now, Mr. Anderson.
Morpheus: We've done it, Trinity. We've found him.
Trinity: I hope you're right.
Morpheus: You don't have to hope. I *know* it.
Agent Brown: Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions.
Agent Brown: What were you doing?
Agent Jones: He doesn't know.
Choi: Hallelujah. You're my savior, man. My own personal Jesus Christ.
Neo: If you get caught using that...
Choi: I know. This never happened. You don't exist.
Neo: Right.
Switch: The digital pimp hard at work.
Cypher: All I do is what he tells me to do. If I had to choose between that and the Matrix, I'd choose the Matrix.
Trinity: The Matrix isn't real.
Cypher: I disagree, Trinity. I think that the Matrix can be more real than this world. All I do is pull a plug here, but there... you have to watch Apoc die.
Agent Smith: Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?
Cypher: I'm tired, Trinity. Tired of this war, tired of fighting... I'm tired of the ship, being cold, eating the same goddamn goop everyday...
Choi: It just sounds to me like you need to unplug, man.
Agent Jones: Only human.
Cypher: [Is about to try to unplug Neo] If Morpheus was right, then there's no way I can pull this plug. I mean if Neo is the One, then there would have to be some kind of miracle to stop me. Right? I mean how can he be the One if he's dead?
Neo: Mr. Wizard, get me the hell out of here!
Agent Smith: The great Morpheus. We meet at last.
Morpheus: And you are?
Agent Smith: A Smith. Agent Smith.
Morpheus: You all look the same to me.
[first lines]
[phone rings]
Cypher: Yeah.
Trinity: Is everything in place?
Cypher: You weren't supposed to relieve me.
Trinity: I know, but I felt like taking a shift.
Cypher: You like him, don't you? You like watching him.
Trinity: Don't be ridiculous.
Cypher: We're gonna kill him. You understand that?
Trinity: Morpheus believes he is the one.
Cypher: Do you?
Trinity: It doesn't matter what I believe.
Cypher: You don't, do you?
Trinity: Did you hear that?
Cypher: Hear what?
Trinity: Are you sure this line is clean?
Cypher: Yeah, of course I'm sure.
Trinity: I better go.
Lieutenant: I think we can handle one little girl. I sent two units, they're bringing her down now.
Agent Smith: No lieutenant, your men are already dead.
[after landing the Nebuchaunezzer to hide from the Sentinels]
Morpheus: How we doing Tank?
[Tank types on the keyboard and the main power goes off]
Tank: Main power offline. EMP armed...
[Tank opens the cover to the EMP switch]
Tank: and ready.
Neo: EMP?
Trinity: Electro-Magnetic Pulse, disables any electrical system within the blast radius, only weapon we have against the machines.
Morpheus: Quiet.
Neo: Am I dead?
Morpheus: Far from it.
Rhineheart: The time has come to make a choice, Mr. Anderson. Either you choose to be at your desk on time from this day forth, or you choose to find yourself another job.
Cypher: Jesus. What a mind-job.
Cypher: [referring to an alcoholic drink] Dozer makes it. It's good for two things, degreasing engines and killing brain cells.
Agent Smith: Dammit.
Agent Brown: The trace was completed.
Agent Jones: We have their position.
Agent Brown: Sentinels are standing by.
Agent Jones: Order the strike.
Agent Smith: They are not out yet.
[Neo runs down the alleyway and gets trapped]
Neo: Help!, need a little help!
Tank: The door.
[Neo tries a drink made by Dozer and winces]
Cypher: Good shit, huh? It's good for two things: degreasing engines and killing brain cells.
[talking to the unconscious Morpheus]
Cypher: If you'd told us the truth, we would've told you to shove that red pill right up your ass.
Agent Brown: She got out.
Agent Smith: Doesn't matter.
Agent Brown: The informant is real.
Agent Smith: Yes.
Agent Jones: We have the name of their next target.
Agent Brown: The name is Neo.
Agent Smith: We'll need a search running.
Agent Jones: It has already begun.
Agent Smith: Find them and destroy them
Cypher: Neo. You scared the b'Jesus out of me.
Agent Smith: Never send a human to do a machine's job.
Agent Brown: If, indeed, the insider has failed, they'll sever the connection as soon as possible. Unless...
Agent Jones: ...they're dead. In either case...
Agent Smith: ...we have no choice but to continue as planned. Deploy the sentinels. Immediately.
Agent Smith: I'm going to enjoy watching you die, Mr. Anderson.
Morpheus: Don't think you are. Know you are!