Nobody even knows about Dark City which came out the same year. Because the freaking Matrix came out too. That's just how many good films there were that year. If Dark City came out today it would be lauded as most original thing in a decade.

I refer to dark city all the time when creating AI agents, when Kiefer would inject them with particular memories when the city stood still. And Shell Beach pops into my mind when I take the train to the former grandios Coney Island.

Existenz was another unique underappreciated movie of that year and whose theme never got picked by any other movie. When Jude Law realizes that the Chinese food he is eating can be put together to assemble the gun my mind was blown.

The Matrix, Dark City, The Thirteenth Floor, and Existenz.

Saw all of them in 1999 / 2000, my career direction was decided in that brief period.

Worth mentioning Office Space as well for 99. All three of those films comprise the Pre-Millennium paranoid, existential, system of control trilogy.

Don’t forget about The 13th Floor, also from 1999.

Youre right, Dark City was amazing.

But the elevator lobby shootout from Matrix -- that scene ruled my home theater configuration for at least a decade

Don’t forget about Equlibrium with Christian Bale as a Tetragrammaton Cleric. Gunkata.

Isn't that from 2002?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equilibrium_(film)

It hasn’t held up too well objectively, but Equilibrium does hold a fond memory for me.

And Dark City was delayed after it was finished, it should have come out before The Matrix. I copy here my previous HN comment from June 2023: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36415981

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I watched Dark City years after watching The Matrix (on opening in the cinema) and I enjoyed it very much, have watched it multiple times over the years.

Here is Dark City’s director Alex Proyas: “Alex Proyas on: The Matrix copying Dark City” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytxjsetVIRM

And this is a juxtaposition of some scenes with background music: “The Matrix vs. Dark City.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moW17YHl6B8

This is Mr. Hand [Richard O’Brien] talking in ”Memories of Shell Beach”:

> It was a very groovy movie, you see?

> I remember saying to Rufus Sewell [who played the protagonist], I said, you know, it actually, truthfully, it really doesn’t matter, does it, whether it’s a box-office success because we’re going to get paid as actors anyway, sorry Alex [Proyas] but this is true, we’re gonna get paid as actors anyway and isn’t it nice to be part of something which is groovy?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrK4U6PEu94&t=1029s

iirc scenes from the matrix were actually filmed on some of the sets from dark city. The atmosphere and setting directly bleeds over.

Dark City released in February, 1998. Great movie, though.

Didn't expect Dark City to be mentioned in the Christmas thread. Great movie, indeed. Dark, mysterious and thought provoking.

Fun fact: 1999 was also 'peak public phone booths'. Ever since then, they've declined in number and now are almost impossible to find. Every year it gets harder to follow that damn rabbit...