Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Sun 23 August 2026 14:30, UK
While there’s no debating that he’s been in a handful of iconic movies, Keanu Reeves has been in more great movies than you might think, given his reputation for being more of a genre actor.
Having spent his entire career batting away accusations that he’s not very good at his job, which patently isn’t true, since you don’t spend four decades as a movie star without having something special about you, what he’s very clearly always lacked in dramatic chops, he more than makes up for in presence.
He’s absolutely shite in it, and he’d agree with that assessment, but Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula is still a lavish, opulent, and eye-popping gothic treat. Maybe not great, but still very good, despite Reeves’ woeful performance as Jonathan Harker, and we haven’t even gotten to the classics yet.
The Matrix, unlike its sequels, still holds up, and so do Point Break, Speed, and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, while all four of the John Wick flicks rank among the 21st-century’s finest actioners. Beyond that, he was in Ron Howard’s Parenthood, Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing, River’s Edge, Dangerous Liaisons, and Toy Story 4, all of which deserve top marks.
Of course, he’s also been in a fair amount of guff, but the unlikely picture he picked as the greatest he’s ever made fell somewhere in the middle. If you didn’t think Reeves was the kind of guy who’d place one of his credits on a higher pedestal than the others, you’re sort of right, because when he was asked that very question, he gave a spur-of-the-moment answer.
“Today, I’ll pick Little Buddha,” he responded. Nowhere near his best work, but collaborating with the legendary Bernardo Bertolucci and Apocalypse Now cinematographer Vittorio Storaro pushed it to the head of the pack, not to mention being cast as a character he’d have never dreamed of.
“For me, it was about working with Bertolucci and Storaro, and playing a role that I could not have possibly have imagined I’d be playing,” Reeves went on. “I went to Bhutan and Kathmandu, and that whole experience was life-changing. I was introduced to a philosophy, a religion, a way of being, that I hadn’t experienced before.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
Most Canadian actors will never get the chance to play a mostly shirtless Nepalese prince who makes it their life’s mission to solve the age-old problem of universal suffering, so you can understand why the star seized the unexpected opportunity with both hands when it came his way.
More than being a job, though, it was an experience he’d never forget. “The nature of some of the beginning or pillar tenets of Buddhism: permanence, some sorrow, just being in the moment, how you are,” he mused. “It was a revelation to me.” It’s a shame that it wasn’t all that good, then, but at least the leading man had a revelatory time making it.
