The Matrix Story Explained: From the Machine War to Resurrections

The Matrix starts as a story about one man learning the world is fake. Over three more films and an animated anthology it turns into a much stranger story about war, religion and two sides that can't live with or without each other. This is all of it in the order it happens, with spoilers throughout. (The Matrix)

Before the first film#

The Second Renaissance, two shorts in The Animatrix, gives the backstory. Humans built robots to serve them. One, B1-66ER, killed its owner to avoid being destroyed, and the trial led to riots and persecution. The Machines left and founded their own country, Zero One, whose economy soon outgrew human nations. When their peace offers were rejected, the world went to war. Losing, humanity blackened the sky to cut off the Machines' solar power. It didn't work. The Machines won and turned to the human body for energy. (The Animatrix)

The Matrix (1999)#

Thomas Anderson, an office worker and hacker called Neo, is contacted by Morpheus and Trinity. He takes the red pill and wakes up in a pod in the real world, long after the war. Morpheus believes he's the One, a figure foretold to free humanity. He trains, visits the Oracle, and is told he isn't it, yet. When the traitor Cypher helps the Agents capture Morpheus, Neo goes back to save him. Agent Smith shoots him dead, Trinity brings him back, and he finally sees the Matrix for what it is and destroys Smith from the inside. (The Matrix)

The Matrix Reloaded (2003)#

The Machines are drilling down towards Zion. On the Oracle's advice Neo finds the Keymaker, held by the program called the Merovingian, and reaches the Source, where he meets the Architect. The prophecy, the Architect says, is a control system. The Matrix keeps producing a remainder of people who reject it. The One gathers them, Zion is destroyed, and the One restarts the cycle by choosing a few survivors to rebuild. Five Ones did this before Neo. He's offered that bargain and walks out to save Trinity instead. The film ends with most of Zion's fleet destroyed, Neo in a coma after stopping Sentinels in the real world, and a copy of Smith riding in a human body. (The Matrix Reloaded)

The Matrix Revolutions (2003)#

Neo escapes a limbo program, and the Machines reach Zion. Smith has now overrun nearly all of the Matrix, the Oracle included, and is no longer under anyone's control. Neo and Trinity fly to the Machine City, where Trinity dies. Neo offers the Machines a deal: he'll stop Smith, and they stop the war. He lets Smith assimilate him, and the Machines send a surge through him that destroys every copy. Neo's body is carried away, the Sentinels leave Zion, and the Matrix resets with a promise that anyone who wants to leave can do so. (The Matrix Revolutions)

The Matrix Resurrections (2021)#

Sixty years later Thomas Anderson is a game designer in a rebuilt Matrix, told that his memories come from games he created. A program called the Analyst has revived him and Trinity, who doesn't know him, and uses the bond between them to power the system. A group of free humans led by Bugs pull him out. Zion is gone and humanity now lives in a new city, Io, with some Machines as allies. Neo goes back for Trinity, and she chooses to wake up. Together they take on the Analyst and leave to remake the Matrix. (The Matrix Resurrections)