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It’s easy to write off Keanu Reeves. He’s not an actor who disappears into roles, he has an unusual first name, and he rarely performs in the high drama that courts the approval of critics. Whenever he does drama, it’s usually stuff that’s too small for people to notice (The Whole Truth) and for the most part, he’s fairly comfortable in his role as a genre staple.

But to write off Reeves as nothing more than an action star who lacks range would be missing the breadth of his filmography and his skill. Just because people like seeing Reeves as an action hero, that doesn’t mean that’s the only role he’s capable of playing, and while it’s easy to pigeonhole and dismiss him, doing so would be a mistake. Ever since he burst on the scene in the early 90s, Reeves has remained an interesting, underestimated talent who deserves more recognition for his body of work. You don’t stick around in Hollywood for three decades if you don’t have something unique to offer, and Reeves has become a singular presence.

Read on for the Top 5 Keanu Reeves performances.

My Own Private Idaho

While it’s tempting to cite Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Point Break, or even Parenthood when it comes to Reeves’ breakout work, when it comes to the early 90s, there’s no matching his turn in Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho. Although the film as a whole doesn’t really work for me, I adore Reeves’ performance, which combines elements of a rebellious Henry V with a tender, lost soul. In his performance as Scott Favor, Reeves showed he could be equally endearing and despicable in his characterizations, someone you’d want to care for and yet also equally cool and despicable when the moment called for it. The performance gets lost a bit in Van Sant’s indie aesthetic, but it shouldn’t be forgotten.

The Matrix

The arc of Reeves’ career is a bit harsh. It usually goes that he’ll star in a hit movie and then follow it with a string of flops. Speed was a massive hit, but then Reeves followed it up with misfire after misfire. If not for The Matrix, he career might never have recovered, and instead, he led one of the biggest and most important action movies of all time. It’s also the perfect vehicle for Reeves, who’s cool without swagger. The role is a bit of a two-hander, because you need to buy the actor as the reclusive, nerdy Thomas Anderson, but you also need to buy him as a badass that can change the world with his kung fu. He also needs to be enough of an empty vessel to function as an audience surrogate and deep enough that you’ll buy him obtaining all knowledge. Reeves didn’t just look the part; he made the part.

The Gift

This forgotten Sam Raimi film isn’t particularly good, but it features one of the most surprising and intense performances from Reeves. There are many adjectives I would use to describe the majority of Reeves’ performances, but “terrifying” isn’t one of them. However, in The Gift, that’s exactly what he is. In the film, Reeves plays Donnie Barksdale, an unrepentant wife beater with a short fuse. It’s a performance that calls on Reeves to play the exact opposite of his cool, heroic character into someone angry and despicable, and he does it with flying colors. It’s almost bizarre to see Reeves in this kind of role when you look at the rest of his filmography, and it was a risk to cast him against type, but it pays off in all of Reeves’ scenes.

Man of Tai Chi

It helps when an actor knows what kind of movie he’s in. Reeves has no illusions that Man of Tai Chi is a schlocky martial arts film, and he does everything in his power to make it live up to that billing. He’s not even the star of Man of Tai Chi, instead playing the antagonist against Tiger Chen Lin Hu (Tiger Hu Chen), a young martial artist who becomes embroiled in an underground fight club run by Donaka Mark (Reeves). Getting to employ such exclamations as “Finish him!” and “You owe me a life!” Reeves is clearly having a ball getting to play such a campy character, and while his martial arts acumen can’t match Hu Chen, he still gives this silly movie everything he’s got.

John Wick

Reeves has been in movies with bigger box office totals and films that have made a greater mark on pop culture, and yet I feel that when all is said and done, this will be the one where we remember Reeves’ first (as opposed to The Matrix, which is a landmark of visual effects). It feels like a role that’s accepting of where Reeves is now in his life and career rather than trying to pass him off as someone twenty years younger. John Wick is tired, eager to get out of the game, and when you set him off, he’s going to make you pay for it. Reeves’ carries his filmography with him in this role, and yet it also feels fresh. This isn’t a rehash of Johnny Utah or Neo, but it’s from a man who owned those roles and continues to own them. John Wick is a statement: “Never write off Keanu Reeves.”