The Wachowskis

Lana Wachowski (born June 21, 1965; formerly known as Larry Wachowski) and Lilly Wachowski (born December 29, 1967; formerly known as Andy Wachowski) are American film and television directors, writers and producers.

The sisters are both trans women.

Together known as the Wachowskis, the sisters have worked as a writing and directing team through most of their careers.

Lana was born in Chicago in 1965; Lilly was born two and a half years later, in 1967.

Their mother, Lynne ( Luckinbill), was a nurse and painter.

Their father, Ron Wachowski, was a businessman of Polish descent.

Their uncle is an actor and Primetime Emmy Award–winning producer, Laurence Luckinbill.

The Wachowskis attended the Kellogg Elementary School in Chicago's Beverly area, and graduated from Whitney Young High School, known for its performing arts and science curriculum, in 1983 and 1985.

Former classmates recall them playing Dungeons & Dragons and working in the school's theater and TV program.

Lana went to Bard College, in New York state; Lilly attended Emerson College, in Boston.

Each dropped out before graduating, and they ran a house-painting and construction business in Chicago.

In the mid-1990s, they went into film writing, including the script for Assassins in 1994, which was directed by Richard Donner and released in 1995.

Warner Bros. bought the script and included two more pictures in the contract.

Donner had their script "totally rewritten" by Brian Helgeland and the Wachowskis tried unsuccessfully to remove their names from the film.

They say the experience gave them the perspective that they should become directors or "[they will] never survive as writers in this town".

Beginning in 1993, they wrote several issues of Ectokid for Marvel Comics' Razorline imprint (created by horror novelist Clive Barker), which were credited to Lana.

They also wrote for the series Clive Barker's Hellraiser and Clive Barker's Nightbreed for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint.

They made their directing debut in 1996 with Bound and achieved fame with their second film, The Matrix (1999), a major box office success for which they won the Saturn Award for Best Director.

Their next project was the 1996 neo-noir thriller Bound, for which they wrote the script and made their debut as directors.

The film was well received for its style and craft, and was noted as one of the first mainstream films to feature a same-sex relationship without it being central to the plot.

Taking advantage of the positive buzz, the Wachowskis asked to direct their next picture, The Matrix.

They completed The Matrix, a science fiction action film, in 1999.

The movie stars Keanu Reeves as Neo, a hacker recruited by a rebellion to aid them in the fight against machines who have taken over the world and placed humanity inside a simulated reality called "the Matrix".

Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving and Joe Pantoliano also star.

The movie was a critical and commercial hit for Warner Bros. It won four Academy Awards, including for "Best Visual Effects" for popularizing the bullet time visual effect.

The Matrix came to be a major influence for action movies and has appeared in several "greatest science fiction films" lists.

They wrote and directed its two sequels, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both in 2003), and were involved in the writing and production of other works in the Matrix franchise.

After its success, the Wachowskis directed two sequels back-to-back, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions, both released in 2003.

The Matrix Reloaded received positive critical reception, although not on the level of the original.

Following the commercial success of the Matrix series, the Wachowskis wrote and produced the 2005 film V for Vendetta, an adaptation of the graphic novel by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, and in 2008 released the film Speed Racer, a live-action adaptation of the Japanese anime series.

Ron and Lynne died five weeks apart in the late 2010s.

Lana and Lilly have two other sisters, Julie and Laura.

Julie was assistant coordinator for the film Bound; she is a novelist and screenwriter.

Their next film, Cloud Atlas, based on the novel by David Mitchell and co-written and co-directed by Tom Tykwer, was released in 2012.

In 2012, the film was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant".

Their film Jupiter Ascending and the Netflix series Sense8, which they co-created with J. Michael Straczynski, debuted in 2015; the second season of Sense8 ended the series in 2018 and was Lana's first major project without Lilly.

It became a major box office hit, retaining the spot of the highest-grossing R-rated film for over a decade (until 2016's Deadpool).

The Matrix Revolutions received a mixed critical reception and performed only moderately in the box office.

Although profitable, it was slightly less so compared to the original film.

Since the series finale of Sense8, the Wachowskis have been working separately on different projects: Lilly directed, wrote, and executive-produced several episodes of Showtime's Work in Progress (2019) with creators Abby McEnany and Tim Mason, while Lana filmed The Matrix Resurrections, written with Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, which was released in December 2021.