Rage Against the Machine (often abbreviated as RATM or shortened to Rage) was an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California, in 1991. It consisted of vocalist Zack de la Rocha, bassist and backing vocalist Tim Commerford, guitarist Tom Morello, and drummer Brad Wilk. They melded heavy metal and rap music, punk rock and funk with anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and revolutionary lyrics. As of 2010, they had sold over 16 million records worldwide. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023.

Rage Against the Machine released their self-titled debut album in 1992 to acclaim; in 2003, Rolling Stone ranked it number 368 on its list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. They achieved commercial success following their performances at the 1993 Lollapalooza festival. Their next albums, Evil Empire (1996) and The Battle of Los Angeles (1999), topped the Billboard 200 chart. Rage Against the Machine became a popular and influential band, and influenced the nu metal genre which came to prominence during the late 1990s and early 2000s. They were also ranked No. 33 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock.

In 2000, Rage Against the Machine released the cover album Renegades and disbanded after growing creative differences. After pursuing other projects for several years, they reunited to perform at Coachella in 2007. Over the next four years, the band played live venues and festivals around the world before going on hiatus in 2011. In 2019, Rage Against the Machine announced a world tour that was delayed to 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and was ultimately cut short after de la Rocha suffered a leg injury. Wilk confirmed in 2024 that the band had disbanded for the third time.

In 1991, following the break-up of guitarist Tom Morello's former band Lock Up, former Lock Up drummer Jon Knox encouraged Tim Commerford and Zack de la Rocha to jam with Morello as he was looking to start a new group. Morello soon contacted Brad Wilk, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for both Lock Up and the band that would later become Pearl Jam. This lineup named themselves Rage Against the Machine, after a song De la Rocha had written for his former underground hardcore punk band Inside Out (also to be the title of the unrecorded Inside Out full-length album). Record label owner and zine publisher Kent McClard, with whom Inside Out was associated, used the phrase "rage against the machine" in a 1989 article in his zine No Answers.

The blueprint for the group's major-label debut album and demo tape Rage Against the Machine was laid on a twelve-song self-released cassette, the cover image of which featured newspaper clippings of the stock market section with a single match taped to the inlay card. Not all 12 songs made it onto the final album—two were eventually included as B-sides, while three others never saw an official release. Several record labels expressed interest, and the band eventually signed with Epic Records. Morello said, "Epic agreed to everything we asked—and they've followed through ... We never saw a[n] [ideological] conflict as long as we maintained creative control."

The band's debut album, Rage Against the Machine, was released in November 1992. The cover featured Malcolm Browne's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the shooting of Buddhists by the regime of U.S.-backed prime minister Ngô Đình Diệm. The album was produced by Canadian record producer and music engineer Garth Richardson.

While sales were initially slow, the album became a critical and commercial success, driven by heavy radio airplay of the song "Killing in the Name", a heavy, driving track featuring only eight lines of lyrics. The "Fuck You" version, which contains 17 instances of the word fuck, was once accidentally played on the BBC Radio 1 Top 40 singles show on February 21, 1993.

The band's profile soared following a performance at the Lollapalooza festival in mid-1993 tour; sales of Rage Against the Machine in the United States increased from 75,000 before Lollapalooza, to 400,000 by the end of the year. The band also toured with Suicidal Tendencies in Europe, and House of Pain. By April 1996, the album had sold over 1 million copies in the United States and 3 million copies worldwide. It was certified triple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in May 2000.