Though many of his films met with mediocre critical and commercial success, Reeves shone in such little-seen independent films as River’s Edge and 1991's My Own Private Idaho (costarring River Phoenix), enticing a number of talented directors, including Coppola and Bernardo Bertolucci, who directed Reeves as the title character in Little Buddha (1993).

Reeves’ box office clout jumped a good deal in 1994, when he headlined the blockbuster hit Speed, also featuring Hopper and Sandra Bullock. With a newly muscular physique to fit the action-hero mold, Reeves propelled the film to a box office total of over $120 million. He had less success with several of his later projects, including a big-budget science fiction bomb Johnny Mnemonic, the sentimental A Walk in the Clouds (both 1995), and the action dud Chain Reaction (1996). After turning down a $12 million offer to star in Speed 2 (which was released in 1997 to extreme critical derision), Reeves starred as an ambitious young lawyer who gets lured into a deal with the Devil (played by Al Pacino) in the horror thriller The Devil’s Advocate (1997). With The Matrix, an innovative sci-fi thriller and box office slam released in 1999, Reeves made a major career resurgence, garnering some of his best critical and commercial notices ever. One of the best-received films of the year, The Matrix (which costarred Laurence Fishburne) won a number of Academy Awards (all technical and visual), and brought Reeves straight back into the hearts of millions of fans. He has signed to reprise his role as the computer hacker Neo in two upcoming sequels, which will be filmed back-to-back in 2001.

In late summer 2000, Reeves starred opposite Gene Hackman in The Replacements, a film about a group of second-rate football players recruited to fill in during the 1987 National Football League strike. He ventured into darker territory later thay year, playing a serial killer in the suspenseful thriller The Watcher and an abusive husband in The Gift, costarring Cate Blanchett and Hilary Swank. In 2001, he starred in Sweet November with Charlize Theron, and Hardball, with Diane Lane.

In addition to his acting career, Reeves plays bass guitar in a band, Dogstar, which he formed in 1993 with Bret Domrose and Robert Mailhouse. They have released two full-length albums: Our Little Visionary (1997) and Happy Ending (2000).

Notoriously private about his personal life, Reeves has often been the subject of gossip, mainly focusing on questions about his sexuality. The press has linked him to costars such as Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix) as well as actress and model Amanda de Cadenet. Gossip aside, the actor's life was recently struck by tragedy, when his girlfriend, Jennifer Syme, gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in 2000. One year later, in April 2001, the 29-year-old Syme was killed in a car accident.