Matt Damon's ten best movies, according to fans

How many of these beauties have you seen?

Dan Seddon
Updated ·6-min read
Matt Damon attends Apple Original Films 'The Instigators' premiere at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York on July 31, 2024
Matt Damon attends The Instigators premiere at New York's Lincoln Center. (Getty Images)

36 years on from his screen debut in the rom-com Mystic Pizza, Matt Damon has undoubtedly climbed to the top of the Hollywood tree.

Together with his close collaborator Ben Affleck, the Massachusetts native collected an Oscar for Best Screenplay in 1997 for their modern classic Good Will Hunting and Damon has never looked back. Next week, he'll appear opposite the younger Affleck sibling Casey in Apple TV+ project The Instigators, which sees their ineffective thieves going on the run.

Below, we'll revisit the actor's Top 10 on IMDb, yet there's still plenty of enjoyment to be found in his genre-jumping output such as Stuck on You - he and Greg Kinnear play conjoined twins - Ridley Scott's medieval dust-up The Last Duel, Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's trilogy, the Coen brothers' western remake True Grit, and last year's Air Jordan origin story.

A still from Interstellar. (Warner Bros.)
On an alien world in Christopher Nolan's Interstellar. (Warner Bros.)

Celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Christopher Nolan's homage to Stanley Kubrick's seminal sci-fi 2001: A Space Odyssey, Interstellar, zaps audiences into a dystopian future where mankind is so desperate for a new home that it sends a team of astronauts through a wormhole.

Had circumstances unfolded differently, Steven Spielberg would've directed this one, while Damon appears for an extended cameo as a bit of a b****** named Dr. Mann.

HANKS,DAMON, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, 1998
Captain Miller and Private Ryan. (DreamWorks Pictures)

Speaking of Spielberg, 1998's blistering World War II story Saving Private Ryan is one of the most unforgettable cinematic experiences you can gift to yourself.

Lead by Tom Hanks as Captain Miller, it follows a band of brothers deep in Normandy during 1944, where they're tasked with tracking down the eponymous soldier whose three siblings have been killed in action.

Remember to pick your jaw up off the floor after the Omaha beach sequence.

NICHOLSON,DAMON, THE DEPARTED, 2006,
Jack Nicholson's mob boss Frank Costello and his mole. (Warner Bros.)

Famed for being the movie that finally landed directorial maestro Martin Scorsese his Oscar, 2006's ensemble crime thriller The Departed is part-remake of Infernal Affairs (a Hong Kong movie released four years prior) and part-based-on-true-events pertaining to the Boston Winter Hill Gang.

Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio portray two police academy graduates on different sides of the fence; the former planted as a mole inside the Massachusetts State Police and the latter becoming a mob henchman for Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson) under equally false pretences.

It's a masterful exercise in cat-and-mouse drama.

Prod DB © Miramax Films / DR WILL HUNTING (GOOD WILL HUNTING) de Gus Van Sant 1997 USA avec Matt Damon et Robin Williams discussion,
The one that started it all. (Miramax Films)

Everyone associated with Good Will Hunting was sprinkled with golddust in 1997. Damon, Affleck and Robin Williams were all honoured by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with their own statuettes, while director Gus Van Sant, Minnie Driver, producer Lawrence Bender, composer Danny Elfman, editor Pietro Scalia and musician Elliott Smith received nominations in their respective fields.

The secret intellect of a janitor named Will Hunting (Damon) is discovered by a professor when he solves a mind-hurting maths problem, who in turn decides to help him reach his full potential.

As therapist Sean Maguire, the late great Williams walks away with the whole damn thing.

USA. Matt Damon in a scene from the (C)Universal Pictures new film: Oppenheimer (2023) . Plot: The story of American scientist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the development of the atomic bomb. Ref: LMK110-J9914-170523 Supplied by LMKMEDIA. Editorial Only. Landmark Media is not the copyright owner of these Film or TV stills but provides a service only for recognised Media outlets. pictures@lmkmedia.com
Director of the Manhattan Project, General Leslie Groves. (Universal Pictures)

Notching up his second Nolan credit here, Damon stepped into the desert-dusted boots of General Leslie Groves for 2023 sensation Oppenheimer, who recruits theoretical physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) to head the infamous Los Alamos Laboratory in 1942. The rest is history, as Oppenheimer's creation of the atomic bomb resulted in Japan's surrender during the Pacific War.

Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jr, Benny Safdie, Florence Pugh, Gary Oldman, Josh Hartnett, Rami Malek, Kenneth Branagh, Jason Clarke, David Dastmalchian, Alden Ehrenreich, Dane DeHaan, Jack Quaid, Matthew Modine and Alex Wolff all star in varying capacities - has anyone assembled such a boatload of talent before or since?

Oppenheimer made $23m shy of a billion at the global box office, too.

Ford v Ferrari (titled Le Mans '66 in the UK and other territories) is an upcoming American biographical drama film directed by James Mangold, and written by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and Jason Keller. It stars Matt Damon and Christian Bale, while Jon Bernthal, Caitriona Balfe, Tracy Letts, Josh Lucas, Noah Jupe, Remo Girone and Ray McKinnon appear in supporting roles. This photograph is supplied for editorial use only and is the copyright of the film company and/or the designated photographer assigned by the film or production company.
Christian Bale's Ken Miles and Damon's Carroll Shelby. (20th Century Fox)

Titled Le Mans '66 across some European countries, this dramatisation of the build-up to the 1966 edition of French race '24 Hours of Le Mans' comes from James Mangold of Logan filmmaking fame (he's also got a new Star Wars blockbuster in the works).

In it, Christian Bale turns into British racer Ken Miles, who along with Damon's designer Carroll Shelby is hired by Henry Ford II and Lee Iacocca to construct a vehicle capable of dismounting serial winners Scuderia Ferrari.

A doubter of the IMDb scoring system? 92% on Rotten Tomatoes only further insists you watch Ford v Ferrari.

MATT DAMON, THE MARTIAN, 2015
Life on mars. (20th Century Fox)

Based on author Andy Weir's incredibly popular novel, The Martian plonks our subject on the Red Planet as spaceman Mark Watney, whose mission reaches catastrophe when he's struck by debris in a violent storm and presumed dead by his crew.

What comes next is a sometimes comical yet always gripping exploration of survival. Being a botanist as well as a mechanical engineer, Watney manages to cultivate potatoes in his alien-soiled garden thanks to the crew's bio-waste and some leftover rocket fuel. In your face Neil Armstrong, indeed.

MATT DAMON, THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, 2007,
Jason Bourne for a third time. (Universal Pictures)

Third time's the charm for Damon's fugitive assassin Jason Bourne, who returned for The Bourne Ultimatum in 2007 after the money-magnet releases of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Identity.

By this point fans knew what to expect from the franchise, but with Paul Greengrass's punchy directing and the assured cast additions of David Strathairn, Albert Finney, Paddy Considine, Scott Glenn and Joan Allen, Ultimatum is the entry fans loved the most.

Matt Damon, Luke Hemsworth and Sam Neill debuted as a trio of Asgardian actors in Thor: Ragnarok. (Marvel/Disney)
A trio of Asgardian actors. (Marvel/Disney)

In an unexpected Thor: Ragnarok cameo, Damon joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe by portraying an actor performing as Tom Hiddleston's god of mischief Loki on stage.

Dying in the arms of Luke Hemsworth's equally outrageous Thor, the pale-faced thespian tells his brother: "I'm sorry I tried to rule Earth. I'm sorry about that thing with the Tesseract... I just couldn't help myself. I'm a trickster."

It's a classic Taika Waititi setup, who unleashed that idiosyncratic humour into the world of superheroes with memorable aplomb for the first time. He'd later direct its sequel Thor: Love and Thunder.

MATT DAMON, THE BOURNE IDENTITY, 2002,
Hang on Jason! (Universal Pictures)

2002 was the year Damon announced himself as a true leading man in the business.

In the summer months, audiences bared witness to his ferocious amnesiac Jason Bourne desperately trying to unlock a connection to the CIA. Three agents codenamed Castel, Manheim and the Professor are each sent out as part of the Operation Treadstone program to put him in the ground, but little do they realise just what they're up against.

The Bourne Identity would kickstart a brand-new action franchise to rival James Bond.

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