Partly, the film is remembered for the revolutionary “bullet time” visual technique. Partly for the jaw-dropping choreographed fight sequences. And not least of all, for futuristic and eerily compelling plot. The Wachowski brothers pulled it all together for their most successful work, a tale of a young computer hacker who suddenly finds himself involved in a cataclysmic battle against human-enslaving machines.

On this day, March 31, in 1999, The Matrix opened in theaters across the country. It was the #1 movie over the weekend, setting up a lucrative future – it would go on to earn more than $460 million worldwide.

Most famous, of course, is the movie’s rooftop scene, the revolutionary “bullet time” cinematography technique (which deservedly won the Oscar that year). Neo, the main character, dodges bullets, and the action slows down to show them rippling through the air while the camera pans around the almost perfectly still Neo. In an interview, the visual effect designer of the Matrix credited the director Michael Gondry for the inspiration, as well Akira writer-director Otomo Katsuhiro.