From whoa to woe: Ranking Keanu Reeves’ 20 best performances (and 5 of his worst)

We’re not sure what Kenneth Branagh was smoking when he looked at Reeves’ previous performances and said, “That guy should be doing Shakespeare,” but we’re really glad he did. The cast of this fun, sunlit take on one of the bard’s most popular comedies—led by Branagh himself and his one-time wife Emma Thompson—are all spectacular. Reeves glowers his way through Much Ado as the “plain-dealing villain” of the piece. It’s a minor role, but Don John’s scheming becomes the main source of conflict between the two lovers at the center of the story, played by Kate Beckinsale and Robert Sean Leonard. It was one of the first times we got to see him play against type as an irredeemable cad, but it wouldn’t be the last.

Back in 1989, when Parenthood came out, Reeves was still in his Ted Logan phase, playing goofy surfer-dude types. In Ron Howard’s family comedy, he adds a surprising level of depth to that persona as Tod, the wayward boyfriend of Martha Plimpton’s character Julie. When Julie’s mom Helen (Diane Wiest) asks him to talk to Julie’s little brother (Joaquin Phoenix) about what’s bothering him, Tod becomes a pretty decent male role model without even realizing it. He helps put things in perspective for Helen with this iconic line: “You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog. Or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish. But they’ll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.”

The Devil’s Advocate is the last film of Reeves’ pre-Matrix era, when he was still riding high on the success of Speed, but not yet at the level where he could rationally turn down an opportunity to work with Al Pacino. Like his character, a hot-shot lawyer who unwittingly goes to work for the literal devil, Reeves got more than he bargained for when he signed on to this film. Namely, a co-star capable of sucking up every molecule of oxygen in the room and expelling it back at you in a cascade of fury. As we saw earlier in Dracula, the sense that Reeves is outmatched here works in his favor. We never feel like he has the upper hand, and we’re not supposed to.

More than 30 years after Bill and Ted first stepped into that time-traveling phone booth in front of the Circle K, Reeves and his co-star Alex Winter got the band back together and returned to complete the trilogy with Bill And Ted Face The Music. After a somewhat disappointing sequel (Bill And Ted’s Bogus Journey, which made neither the best nor the worst list here), our expectations were admittedly low, but ultimately we were so happy to have the original Bill and Ted back we barely noticed the plot. Even after all this time, they were somehow able to return to the buoyant, youthful energy that made the characters so fun the first time around. The film itself may have been uneven, but remember, this is a list of Reeves’ best performances, not his best films. We think being able to return to an iconic character after three decades without skipping a beat has to qualify.

Reeves conjures up some uncharacteristic rage as an abusive husband in this supernatural thriller directed by Sam Raimi. The Gift features an impressive cast, including Cate Blanchett, Hilary Swank, Greg Kinnear, Giovanni Ribisi, and Katie Holmes. Blanchett plays a psychic who gets involved when a woman goes missing in a small southern town. Reeves’ Donnie becomes the main suspect in the case, but the truth may not be as simple as it seems. We’ve seen Reeves commit many acts of violence (that’s the basis of every John Wick film, after all) but it’s chilling to see that brutality in the form of the toxic bully he plays here.

Reeves can do action thrillers and science-fiction films, but he’s also got a softer side, as evidenced by the number of solid rom-coms in his oeuvre. In the classic Nancy Meyers joint Something’s Gotta Give he plays a “gorgeous, wholesome doctor” who takes an interest in Diane Keaton, despite their age difference. Unfortunately for him, she’s on her way to falling for the more age-appropriate Harry (Jack Nicholson), a womanizer who’s been dating her daughter (Amanda Peet). We have some notes for Nancy on this one, most of them to do with the conceit that anyone would reject sweet, earnest Dr. Keanu in favor of a supposedly reformed Nicholson. We can’t fault the performances, though.

Among the new toy characters introduced in Toy Story 4, one of our favorites was Duke Kaboom, Canada’s homegrown answer to Evel Knievel. Reeves, who also hails from the Great White North, gives a pitch-perfect vocal performance as a daredevil stunt biker whose catchphrase is “Yes I Canada!” Duke’s constant posing and outward bravado mask a heart wounded by rejection from his first owner (“Rejean!”), and Reeves delivers all of those layers using nothing but his voice. He boldly skirts along the edge of self-parody without ever going over it, and ultimately helps save the day by making an impressive jump from a Ferris wheel to a nearby rooftop. If the scene doesn’t make you want to stand up and cheer, you might be dead inside.

This indie gem from early in Reeves’ career has aged so well it’s now considered a cult classic. Written and directed by Gus Van Sant, My Own Private Idaho follows Mike (played by the late, great River Phoenix) and Reeves’ Scott, a pair of sex hustlers who set off on a road trip together in search of Mike’s mother. The movie effectively belongs to Phoenix, who disappears into Mike with a brittle, quiet intensity. Still, Reeves is a dedicated scene partner and gives him plenty to work with. Van Sant and his cast handle the queer elements of the story with a delicate sensitivity that’s become more commonplace now, but seemed revolutionary in 1991. And it proved that Reeves was capable of far more depth than the projects he was getting at the time.

Toy Story 4 is just one of many animated projects Reeves has lent his voice to over the years. Perhaps the weirdest and most ambitious of them is A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater’s adaptation of the novel by Phillip K. Dick. Linklater shot the film digitally first and then used rotoscope technology to animate over it, capturing a kind of twisted simulacrum of Reeves’ performance. He plays an undercover narcotics officer in the near future who becomes addicted to a substance that fractures his psyche until he can’t tell what’s real anymore. It’s a quiet and cerebral endeavor, grounded in emotional truth as Reeves’ character slowly loses his mind. As a bonus, it also features equally great performances by Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder.

This low-key teen crime drama was one of Reeves’ first serious film roles, and River’s Edge still holds up as a brutal look at the moral deficiencies of a generation of teenagers brought up by self-involved parents. Reeves’ naturalistic acting style was well suited to the role of Matt, a messed-up kid who struggles to do the right thing when his friend confesses that he killed his girlfriend and left her body on a riverbank. Even among a cast that included Crispin Glover, Ione Skye, and Dennis Hopper, you could see that there was something special about this kid. His body language, look, and voice all hinted that he was someone to watch.

We’re not sure why John Wick: Chapter 3 needed the extra subtitle, but it translates to “prepare for war,” and that about sums up this film. Reeves returns for another violent killing spree, which starts with him on the run and about to be excommunicated from the underworld. He travels all the way to Casablanca and then ends up right back where he started, at the Continental. By this point in the series, which actually spans only a week or so from the first to the third, we’re convinced John Wick is some sort of vengeance-powered superhero. He’s been chased, stabbed, shot at, punched, kicked, run over, and tossed around, yet he still manages to keep on fighting. It’s become a little ridiculous, but at least it’s consistent.

For fans of the Hellblazer comic series, the casting of Reeves as John Constantine was an unforgivable sin. As originally conceived by Alan Moore, the character was a blond, British, working-class con man and an expert in the occult. If you ignore the connection and pretend that it’s just a standalone supernatural horror film starring Keanu Reeves, it’s easier to appreciate on its own merits. His Constantine is a burnt-out, chain-smoking exorcist with the ability to see demons. You can count on Reeves to take increasingly outlandish situations in stride and face them with resolute force, and that’s what he does here. Reactions were mixed when the film premiered in 2005, but it’s grown in popularity with the passage of time. So much so that a sequel is currently in the works.

The first John Wick was such a critical and financial success that a sequel was practically inevitable. The second picks up where the first left off, with John still trying to leave the assassination business behind and failing miserably. What started as a vendetta against the Russian mob in the first film escalates into a war with the High Table, a powerful international crime syndicate. We may come back for the high-octane fight scenes and the fun of watching Keanu thrashing his opponents, but we stick around to learn more about the lore of this interconnected underworld, with its strict rules and colorful players. The best sequence in the film isn’t even an action scene—it’s the Matrix reunion we get about halfway through when Laurence Fishburne shows up to get his old pal out of a tight spot. We’re looking forward to seeing them team up again in the fourth film as the Bowery King fights to regain his throne.

In 2006, Reeves reunited with his Speed co-star Sandra Bullock for this enchanting time-travel romance—well, sort of. As a pair of star-crossed lovers separated in time by two years they don’t share a lot of screen time, but that just makes the few scenes they do share all the more special. A remake of the South Korean film Il Mare, The Lake House is a love story that unfolds through a series of letters exchanged via a magic mailbox. This is probably the most successful of Reeves’ romantic films, a lot of it due to the chemistry between him and Bullock. They don’t even need to be in a scene together to convince you they’re falling hard for each other. Even if you don’t believe anything else about the totally illogical premise, at least you can believe that.

Casting Reeves as a rookie FBI agent who goes undercover to infiltrate a gang of surfer bank robbers in Point Break was a stroke of genius. Thank you, Kathryn Bigelow. It was Reeves’ first entry into the world of action movies, and it turns out he was built for them. He seems just as natural hanging out at the beach with Patrick Swayze as he is chasing down bad guys with Gary Busey. Like many of Reeves’ films, it has aged like fine wine and gained cult status since its initial release, becoming a pop-culture touchstone and even inspiring a stage show in which a member of the audience is chosen each performance to portray Reeves’ role. It’s not so easy to live up to his singular performance, though, as the 2015 remake starring Luke Bracey as Johny Utah proved.

Is it hard to believe that this extremely chill young dude is the same invincible guy blasting his way through the criminal underworld in John Wick? Nah, Keanu contains multitudes. Ted was his first big breakout role, and you can see all the elements of a star in the making right here. He could easily have been a goofy, one-note gag of a character, yet Reeves gave us glimpses of a thoughtful sensitivity and a humanity beneath the surface. Bill and Ted may not seem like the brightest guys, but they’re not idiots or slackers. They have ambitions and a unique outlook on life. The message of Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure is that if we all took a lesson from these guys in being more kind and open-minded, the world would be a better place. For many who were first introduced to Reeves through Ted, this film remains a sentimental favorite.

After a string of blockbuster hits, Reeves became a big enough name to be in demand for cameos in other people’s projects, often playing a satirical version of himself. His fictionalized persona runs the gamut from self-absorbed jerk to mystical source of wisdom. Only an actor who’s well respected and known for being genuinely decent could get away with that. He’s such a good sport about skewering his own image that he keeps getting asked to do it, and it’s always a treat when he pops up in unexpected places. Whether he’s playing an intimidating romantic obstacle between Ali Wong’s and Randall Park’s characters in Always Be My Maybe, providing the voice of the adorable kitten named after him in Keanu, or mocking Chris Kattan so ruthlessly he decides to leave Hollywood and pursue a new path to stardom in Bollywood Hero, we love to see Keanu just being Keanu.

Perhaps the quintessential action movie of the ’90s, Speed somehow never gets old. The bomb-on-a-bus premise is devilishly clever, and the dialogue is full of zingers like: ”Pop quiz, hotshot!” For that, you can thank an uncredited script rewrite by an up-and-coming writer named Joss Whedon. As bomb squad officer Jack Traven, Reeves spends most of the film coaching (and falling for) Sandra Bullock as Annie, a civilian stuck behind the wheel of the doomed bus. First-time director Jan De Bont—who knew his way around an action movie as the cinematographer of Die Hard—made the most of the undeniable chemistry between his two leads (which they would later rekindle in The Lake House to great effect). Unlike many toughened cop characters around that time who played by their own rules, Reeves’ Jack is a conscientious do-gooder. It’s no wonder his performance here cemented his status as a bona fide action star.

In 2014, Reeves first took on the role of John Wick in the action thriller that would launch one of his most successful franchises. Considering his career up to that point, that’s saying something. He was so good as the dog-loving, revenge-seeking hitman that they brought him back for three more movies (so far) and an upcoming spin-off. John Wick is the rare franchise without a weak link, and Reeves is a big part of the appeal. The plot of the first film is simple—it’s just John, the lethal “Baba Yaga” or boogeyman, plowing through the Russian mob to get to the assholes who killed his dog (and stole his car too, let’s not forget). Directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski just wind him up and let him go. We can’t get enough of his threatening stares and dark delivery of lines like, “Do I look civilized to you?” No, John, and that’s the way we like it.

There can only be one chosen one at the top of this list, so of course it’s The Matrix. Were you expecting anything else? One of the most iconic and influential films of our time came along at the perfect moment in Keanu Reeves’ career. He’d already proved himself in action films, drama, romances, and science fiction—The Matrix was all of those put together in a sleek, stylized package. Reeves transitions believably from ordinary computer programmer Thomas Anderson to savior of humanity Neo, following the path of the hero’s journey throughout the film. It plays to his strengths—an innate sense of astonishment, a zen vibe, and the physicality to pull off lightning-fast moves in extended set pieces. Other actors may have been able to embody one or more of those qualities, but Reeves manages to be them all at once—it was the “whoa” heard round the world.

Now that we’ve ranked the best performances, we’re going to throw in a few of the worst to balance them out. They can’t all be gems, right? Since these films are all bad in different ways (and some aren’t even technically bad), we’re going to list them in no particular order.

Yes, we know, we’re cheating a bit by throwing these two together. It feels right, though. The somewhat disappointing sequels The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions are connected in the same way they’re both disconnected from the original. While we loved what Reeves did as Neo in that film, the second and third didn’t really give him anywhere to go from there. Compare that to the John Wick sequels, which also give us more of the same, but kept the simple premise that made the first one work so well. The fourth film, The Matrix Resurrections, didn’t make this list—not because it didn’t have issues, but because Reeves’ performance at least had some range.

This one could have landed at the bottom based on Reeves’ dreadful British accent alone. That wasn’t the only problem with his performance in Dracula, though. Francis Ford Coppola’s decadent take on Bram Stoker’s legendary vampire is built on its outsized performances, with Gary Oldman milking the title role for all its worth and Anthony Hopkins rising to meet his theatrical energy as Van Helsing. Aside from the scenes he shares with Winona Ryder, Reeves seems like he’s in a completely different movie. It’s not all his fault, he was simply miscast. There is one good thing we as a society got out of this unfortunate situation, though—the tidbit that he and Ryder may or may not still be married, since they filmed their wedding scene with a real priest.

Generation Um… is such a mess of a film even Keanu Reeves couldn’t save it. Pointless and rambling, it tries way too hard to look like it’s not trying at all. The indie feel of it harkens back to the kind of films Reeves did in his early days, but by 2012 he had proven that he was capable of showing way more substance than this. He plays an escort-service chauffeur who wanders around New York City eating sad cupcakes, stealing a video camera, and filming a boring episode of Taxicab Confessions with two party girls. It’s certainly possible to make a film about urban alienation without alienating your audience, but this is not it.

On paper, this adaptation of the novel by Tom Robbins must have seemed like a good idea. In practice, Even Cowgirls Get The Blues was anything but. Reeves got to reunite with director Gus Van Sant after their successful collaboration in My Own Private Idaho, and joined a stacked cast led by Uma Thurman. Something got lost in translation, though. Actually, a lot of somethings. The finished film is astonishingly incoherent, and its attempts to be provocative simply come off as offensive. The whole thing is so cringe-inducing it’s unwatchable. Reeves appears briefly in a small role as Thurman’s would-be suitor, described as (we’re not making this up) a Mohawk Indian watercolorist. Like the film itself, his performance is regrettable.

The title of Little Buddha isn’t a metaphor or literary allusion here, it’s a reference to the actual religious figure whose life story is told in a narrative parallel to the film’s main plot. And guess who plays him. Yep, Reeves, who has no South Asian ancestry, was inexplicably cast to portray Prince Siddhartha, the monk who would go on to become the revered Buddha later in life. That’s just the beginning of the questionable decisions made by director Bernardo Bertolucci. Reeves puts on an atrocious Indian accent, terrible wigs, and so much bronzer it’s borderline problematic. The way we see it, there are a few ways to look at this film—as a curious artifact of a less progressive era, as an accessible entry into Buddhist teachings, or as a cultural travesty. The one thing it isn’t is a successful film.