1990s and breakthrough While living in Spain, Moss obtained a role as Tara, the clerk to Judge Nicholas Marshall in the drama series
Dark Justice, her first television appearance. She moved from
Barcelona to Los Angeles with the series in 1992. Moss left
Dark Justice before the series' third and final season and was replaced by Elisa Heinsohn as Samantha "Sam" Collins. She enrolled at the
American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Pasadena upon her return, and she subsequently starred in
Fox's primetime soap opera
Models Inc., a spin-off of
Melrose Place, as a model. The series was cancelled in July 1995. She headlined a short-lived made-in-Canada series entitled
Matrix. For most of the 1990s, she appeared in several television series such as
Street Justice,
Baywatch,
F/X: The Series, and
Due South, for which she scored a nomination for the
Gemini Award for Best Guest Actress in a Drama. Many of her film roles in the decade were in
B movies, including
Flashfire (1994),
The Soft Kill (1994),
Tough Guy (1994),
Lethal Tender (1996),
Sabotage (1996), and
The Secret Life of Algernon (1997). Her
breakthrough role came when she played
Trinity in the science-fiction thriller
The Matrix (1999). Her role demanded extreme acrobatic actions, and she underwent a three-hour physical test during casting. The film grossed over US$460 million worldwide and was highly acclaimed by critics, some of whom have considered it one of the greatest science-fiction films ever made. Moss asserted that prior to being cast in
The Matrix, she had "no career". It launched Moss into international recognition and transformed her career; in a
New York Daily News interview, she stated, "
The Matrix gave me so many opportunities. Everything I've done since then has been because of that experience. It gave me so much." Moss was nominated for a
Saturn Award for Best Actress, and for the
MTV Movie Award for Breakthrough Female Performance.
2000s Moss had four film releases in 2000—
Chocolat,
Red Planet,
The Crew, and
Memento. In the romantic comedy
Chocolat, she took on the role of Caroline Clairmont, a cold, devoutly pious woman living in a French village. As part of an overall positive response towards the film,
The New York Times remarked that Moss, "as an upright widowed mother swathed in mournful baby blue, radiates glimmers of hurt; she shows it's not easy to keep up such a front." The film made US$152 million at the international box office. The science-fiction thriller
Red Planet had her play the commander and leader of a rescue mission to
Mars.
A.V. Club felt that Moss was "largely reduced to worrying while modelling a series of tight-fitting space fashions". Despite a US$80 million budget, the film only grossed US$33 million worldwide. She appeared as detective Olivia Neal in the crime
black comedy The Crew, directed by
Michael Dinner. In
Christopher Nolan's
neo-noir psychological thriller
Memento, she portrayed a manipulative bartender who meets a man suffering from
anterograde amnesia. Producer
Jennifer Todd suggested Moss for the part after being impressed by her performance in
The Matrix. Nolan decided to cast Moss as Natalie, saying, "She added an enormous amount to the role of Natalie that wasn't on the page". The film became a
sleeper hit, being acclaimed by critics and earning US$39.7 million over a US$9 million budget. She won the
Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female for her performance. Moss reprised the role of Trinity in the
back-to-back sequels
The Matrix Reloaded and
The Matrix Revolutions, both released in 2003. Like the original,
The Matrix Reloaded received positive critical reception, and became a major box office hit, grossing US$742.1 million worldwide.
The Matrix Revolutions received a lukewarm critical reception, but made US$427.3 million globally. During an interview with
BBC Online, Moss expressed her pride for starring in the franchise, which she described as a "segment of [her] life": "It's deep and it's beautiful to have been part of it for so long. It's pretty spectacular". She provided voiceovers for video game and animated spin-offs of the films. In 2005, Moss starred in the little-seen thriller
Suspect Zero as
FBI agent Fran Kulok, and was part of an
ensemble cast in the independent dramedy
The Chumscrubber, which premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival. Moss next appeared in the zombie comedy
Fido (2006), playing a housewife in a 1950s-esque
alternate universe where radiation from space has turned the dead into zombies. She noted the "very rich" and "very visual" script for the film, and became drawn to the project for its "underlying messages about control and domination".
Fido was an opening night film at the
Toronto International Film Festival, and received largely favourable reviews, with the
Los Angeles Times calling it a "crafty mixture of
George A. Romero and
Douglas Sirk." Moss played the neighbour of an
autistic woman in the small-scale romantic drama
Snow Cake (2006). It was released in selected theatres, to positive reviews from critics. Moss earned a nomination for
Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role. In the Hitchcockian thriller
Disturbia (2007), Moss portrayed the mother of a troubled teenager who suspects one of his neighbours is a serial killer. The film was met with a positive critical reception and made US$117.8 million around the globe. She played one of the people who are brought together in the wake of a deadly car accident in the independent drama
Normal (2007), released for selected theatres. Moss appeared in the drama
Fireflies in the Garden, which revolved around the inner lives and affairs of a family. The production premiered at the 2008
Berlin International Film Festival and was released theatrically in the United States in October 2011. She starred in the straight-to-DVD romantic comedy
Love Hurts (2009).
2010s In the thriller
Unthinkable (2010), directed by
Gregor Jordan, Moss played the leader of an FBI counter-terrorism team assigned to interrogate a man who threatens to detonate three nuclear bombs in the United States. The film was released direct-to-DVD and generated controversy over its subject matter. but garnered an overwhelmingly negative reception among film critics and fans alike. Mentioning Moss in its review for the film,
The New York Times remarked that the supporting actors "deserve much, much better". She voiced the character Aria T'Loak in the video games
Mass Effect 2 (2010) and
Mass Effect 3 (2012). She had a four-episode arc in the series
Chuck between 2011 and 2012, and played the regular role of Las Vegas Assistant District Attorney Katherine O'Connell in the
CBS period drama series
Vegas, which premiered in September 2012, but was cancelled after its first season, despite an overall positive response. Writing for
The New York Times, Mike Hale felt that Moss "feels out of place in this frontier tale, but looks great in snug wool suits". Moss obtained the role of Penelope, a California candidate for governor who runs a free health clinic, in the political thriller
Knife Fight (2012), directed by
Bill Guttentag. The film premiered at the
Tribeca Film Festival and was released for a two-theater run and digital platforms. Moss headlined the psychological
dark comedy Compulsion (2013), in which she played one of two people occupying neighbouring apartments, each one grappling with psychological disorders that begin to overtake their lives. The film opened for limited release. She voiced the character of Admiral Wells in the fantasy animated film
The Clockwork Girl (2014). She starred in the
3D historical disaster picture
Pompeii (2014), produced and directed by
Paul W. S. Anderson. The film, inspired by the
eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 that destroyed the
Roman Empire city
Pompeii, had her portray Aurelia, the wife of the city governor. In the independent drama
Elephant Song (2014), directed by
Charles Binamé, Moss starred as the wife of a psychiatrist. The film was screened at the
Toronto International Film Festival, and in its review for the film,
Variety described her role as "a pushily self-centered second wife" and found her part to be "a poorly integrated subplot" in the film. In 2015, she voiced a widowed mother in the made-for-television animated film ''
Pirate's Passage, was one of the narrators in the documentary Unity, and appeared as the wife of Victor Frankenstein in Frankenstein'', an updated adaptation of
Mary Shelley's book. In 2015, Moss appeared in
Jessica Jones as
Jeri Hogarth, an attorney and potentially powerful ally to the title character. The gender of the character was changed from male to female for the series, and the character was written as a lesbian. Moss signed on to the series after reading the first two scripts, having been pitched the character by producer
Jeph Loeb and screenwriter
Melissa Rosenberg. She described the character by saying, "she's fierce, she's strong, she's powerful, and she likes that power". The
web series premiered on Netflix, to critical acclaim. Moss has also reprised her role of Jeri Hogarth in the second-season finale of
Daredevil, and has had recurring arcs in
Iron Fist and
The Defenders. Moss took on the lead role of Dr. Athena Morrow, an
AI researcher invited to reverse engineer a consciousness program, in the second season of the science-fiction series
Humans. Moss filmed a supporting part in the supernatural horror film
The Bye Bye Man (2017), playing what
Variety described as "the world's most soft-edged hard-bitten police detective". Despite negative reviews, the film grossed US$24 million worldwide on a budget of US$7 million.
2020s Moss returned to the
Matrix film series in the 2021 film
The Matrix Resurrections, in which Moss reprises her role as Trinity. The film was released on December 22, 2021, in theaters and on
HBO Max. The film overall received mixed reviews from critics, yet Moss's performance as Trinity was again praised. Moss welcomed her return to the role, stating, "Who am I if not Trinity?" ==Personal life==