Good cop, bad cop, Shakespearean villain – he’s done the lot. To mark the milestone birthday of one of the nicest men in Hollywood, we run down his finest works

20. Little Buddha (1993)

Bernardo Bertolucci, deep into his picturesque international film-making phase, portrays the search for a reincarnated lama to insipid effect. But who better to play Siddhartha in the film’s flashbacks than Keanu Reeves, taking kohl and hair extensions in his stride, not to mention repurposing a king cobra for use as an umbrella?

Reeves in Much Ado About Nothing. Photograph: Everett Collection/Alamy

19. Much Ado About Nothing (1993)

Reeves was unfairly nominated for a wretched Golden Raspberry for his performance as the scheming Don John, but he is one of the most pleasing things about Kenneth Branagh’s clumsily directed Shakespeare romcom. And, variously shirtless (for a massage scene) and wearing tight-fitting leather trousers, definitely the hottest.

18. Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

“I know where the bar-stard sleeps!” Reeves is fine as Jonathan Harker to Winona Ryder’s Mina, although critics, inevitably, mocked his English enunciation in Francis Coppola’s sumptuous vampire spectacular. But his accent is no worse than Gary Oldman’s cod-Carpathian as Dracula, or Anthony Hopkins’s hammy Van Helsing. It’s a bad-accent movie!

With River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho. Photograph: Warner Bros Inc

17. My Own Private Idaho (1991)

River Phoenix plays a narcoleptic gay hustler in love with Reeves’ privileged rich kid in Gus Van Sant’s road movie, now revered as a new queer cinema landmark. For the most part, they are great, but when they start trading dialogue from Shakespeare’s Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, it gets a bit clunky and pretentious.

16. Something’s Gotta Give (2003)

Diane Keaton plays a successful playwright torn between Jack Nicholson, who has a heart attack at her Long Island home during sex with her daughter, and Reeves, his bodacious doctor. Ooh, tough choice! The writer-director Nancy Meyers steers the laziest route possible through this mature romantic triangle, redeemed by its likable cast.

With Jay Mohr (left) and Forest Whitaker in Street Kings. Photograph: Fox Searchlight/Allstar

15. Street Kings (2008)

As an alcoholic cop faced with the consequences of casual corruption within the Los Angeles police department, Reeves proves he can play it straight as a less than admirable protagonist. James Ellroy had a hand in the screenplay of this typically gritty, ultra-violent dispatch from the Training Day scribe David Ayer. It starts with a bang, but runs out of steam.

14. The Devil’s Advocate (1997)

Reeves co-stars in this supernatural thriller as an ambitious attorney who joins a Manhattan law firm to defend wealthy scumbag clients. But the actor’s real function here is to be the straight man to Al Pacino in full-on shouty, eye-poppy mode as the company’s CEO, who is literally the devil.

With Winona Ryder in Destination Wedding. Photograph: Robb Rosenfeld/Robb Rosenfeld/Vertigo

13. Destination Wedding (2018)

Reeves’ most recent collaboration with Winona Ryder is a splenetic anti-romcom in which two embittered cynics meet at the airport en route to a California resort wedding and spend the weekend bickering. They are the only characters with dialogue, and lots of it, which is expertly delivered and sometimes very funny. Romantics should probably abstain.

12. Constantine (2005)

Fans of Alan Moore’s graphic novels deplored the casting of Reeves as an (originally English) occult investigator tackling demonic activity in LA. For the rest of us, he holds his own effortlessly amid a tsunami of special effects and some outrageous scene-stealing from Tilda Swinton as the angel Gabriel and Peter Stormare as Satan.

In The Gift. Photograph: Cinetext Collection/Sportsphoto/Allstar

11. The Gift (2000)

Cate Blanchett plays a clairvoyant who has visions of a murdered woman. Whodunit? Take your pick from a lineup of creepy male slimeballs, including Reeves, effectively cast against type as an abusive husband. It’s deep-fried southern gothic, capably directed by Sam Raimi, although the denouement is disappointingly predictable.

10. A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Reeves plays an undercover narc assigned to run surveillance on himself and his stoner flatmates in a paranoid nightmare set in near-future Orange County, California. Richard Linklater’s rotoscoped animation avoids dumbing down its Philip K Dick source, although the brains of those not attuned to the writer’s vision may end up as scrambled as the mind-boggling “scramble suit” with which Reeves masks his real identity.

9. Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

Critics scoffed at Reeves’s portrayal of a mnemonic courier who has 24 hours to download 320GB of data from his brain before his head explodes. But practical effects, a cult cast and a prescient scenario co-scripted by the cyberpunk guru William Gibson make this grungy sci-fi more fun than you might remember. Reeves’ “I want some room service!” monologue is one for the ages.

In Man of Tai Chi. Photograph: Allstar

8. Man of Tai Chi (2013)

In his directorial debut, Reeves takes on occidental villain duties in an agreeably old-school martial arts movie filmed in China. Tiger Chen plays a young tai chi expert drawn by financial need (a temple needs to be fixed) into an illegal gladiator operation. Will he sacrifice his ideals and learn to kill? Philosophy plus fighting, properly filmed. The boy done good.

7. River’s Edge (1986)

A teenager murders his girlfriend, then invites his friends to view the corpse in Tim Hunter’s ripped-from-the-headlines teen drama, a dirty realist antidote to John Hughes. In his first major role, Reeves plays a classmate wrestling with his conscience, although his character is overshadowed by bonkers performances from Dennis Hopper, as a one-legged biker, and Crispin Glover.

Watch the trailer for Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey.

6. Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

All three Bill and Ted films are delightful, but this first sequel is the most inspired. Reeves and Alex Winter reprise their roles as air-guitarist slackers, killed by evil robot doubles from the future and forced to play Battleships against the Grim Reaper. They end up in hell, being tormented by Granny and the Easter Bunny.

5. Point Break (1991)

“The name’s Johnny Utah!” In his first major action role, Reeves plays an FBI agent who infiltrates Patrick Swayze’s gang of sky-diving surfer dudes who rob banks wearing masks of former US presidents. Kathryn Bigelow directs the hell out of this classic bromance and serves up one of cinema’s most thrilling foot chases.

4. John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Reeves, who clearly works his butt off, exudes a winning combination of sincerity and weariness that tethers his fanciful action films to reality. The fourth Wick is maybe an hour too long, but slips down more smoothly than many shorter films. As soon as we get to Berlin, it’s off to the races, with director Chad Stahelski delivering some of the most intoxicating stunts and action set-pieces in recent cinema.

Watch the trailer for The Matrix.

3. The Matrix (1999)

Post-Speed, critics lapsed into their lazy habit of scoffing at Reeves’ acting abilities. Once again, he silenced the sniping by reinventing himself with an iconic performance. As Neo, the world’s coolest computer nerd, he finds there is more to reality than meets the eye, some of it involving “bullet time”, Yuen Woo-ping’s action choreography, black leather coats and shades. (The less said about the sequels, the better.)

2. Speed (1994)

Earnest and adorable, Reeves anchors Jan De Bont’s stripped-for-action thriller as the bomb disposal officer Jack Traven – “a polite guy trying not to get anyone killed”, according to the script doctor Joss Whedon. Sandra Bullock, in her breakthrough role, is one of the passengers on an LA bus wired to explode if its speed drops below 50mph. Only Jack can save them!

 
As John Wick. Photograph: Allstar/87ELEVEN

1. John Wick (2014)

Russian mobsters steal John Wick’s car and, more heinously, kill the puppy left to him by his late wife. Big mistake: never kill a retired hitman’s puppy! Reeves and Stahelski reinvent the action genre with coherently choreographed disco carnage, a superb cast (McShane! Reddick! Leguizamo! Dafoe!) and a deft introduction to the franchise’s engagingly daft world-building. Welcome to Planet Wick!