Matt Damon best movies: 16 movies that showcase Hollywood stalwart’s versatility and star power
A movie star with great versatility, the Boston-born actor has three decades of films to his name, and here are 16 which showcase his talent.
Is Matt Damon the Jimmy Stewart of our modern cinematic era?
There’s something inherently likeable and seemingly about the Boston-born movie star, which is transferred to most of the characters he’s played – even some of the black hats.
It’s great external baggage for any filmmaker who needs audiences to immediately be on the side of his characters. Smart directors can also weaponise Damon’s “good guy” persona to subvert what you might think of a more complex, even villainous character.
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It didn’t take long for Damon to cement himself as one of the brightest lights of Hollywood, a leading man who as comfortable in an action thriller as he was in a comedy. He could persuasively embody the slithery Tom Ripley and be the ideal young American soldier, someone worthy of everyone else’s sacrifice.
He may not be the most obvious choice to play Odysseus, the Homeric hero who spent 10 years trying to get home to Ithaca, but he was the right choice for Christopher Nolan’s version in part because we have spent three decades watching him on screen.
We want him to make it home, to vanquish the crass suitors, and to have that epiphany about his own culpability in how the world has morphed into one he no longer recognises.
Odysseus’s journey spanned a decade, but Damon’s has spanned more than three. It those prior roles have been stops on the way to this one, just as this one is a step to the next one.
If you look back at his filmography, there’s a coherence to his choices, about an artist who has opted to work with interesting directors including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, the Coen brothers and Steven Soderbergh. Although it is notable he has not worked with a female director – except in 2026 comedy called Influenced, in which he had a small cameo as himself.
He has spanned genres and character types, in scene-stealing supporting performances and anchoring leads, as a hero and a villain and somewhere in between.
Here are just a selection of the Damon movies that have showcased his versatile talents.
TALENTED MR RIPLEY
Anthony Minghella’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s psychological thriller is a masterpiece – and it also happens to look amazing thanks to its glorious setting of the Italian coast and also the very attractive cast.
As Tom Ripley, Damon portrays all the facets of this slippery character who could be, all at once, menacing, charming, pathetic, pitiable and conniving. A tour de force.
Watch: ABC iview
GOOD WILL HUNTING
As a janitor and secret maths whizz, Damon’s star turn opposite a career-best Robin Williams made everyone stand up and take notice. It also brought forth a version of Damon onscreen that would endure in the years to follow – a character who has made his share of mistakes but is a decent person who deserves a second chance.
Watch: ABC iview, Stan
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN
The key to Damon’s character in Saving Private Ryan is that he is something of an archetype. He had to be because James Ryan had to represent a good American soldier who could be any of the young boys who were sent to the frontlines. Saving James Ryan was like saving American itself.
Watch: Stan
FORD VS FERRARI
Ford v Ferrari is like the ultimate dad movie, so it makes sense that Damon, an actor dads like a lot, is one of its two leads, alongside Christian Bale. The surprisingly taut motorsports drama is an underdog story about an American team (Damon plays designer Carroll Shelby, a real guy) who enters 24 Hours of Le Mans with a car that no one regards as serious competition.
Watch: Disney+
OCEAN’s 11, 12 and 13
Damon and director Steven Soderbergh have worked together nine times, and it was the Ocean’s 11 which kicked off such a fruitful partnership. As Linus Caldwell, he was playing third string to George Clooney and Brad Pitt, but in an impressive ensemble, he more than came into and then held his own.
Watch: Stan, HBO Max
BOURNE QUADROLOGY
Talk about influential. It was the action-led grittiness of the Bourne movies that pushed the James Bond franchise to rethink its overall tone. As an amnesiac assassin on the run while unravelling a larger conspiracy over four movies, Damon embodied a character who was something of a blank slate but whose foundational personhood was always just under the surface.
Watch: Prime, Binge, Paramount+
THE INFORMANT!
One of Damon’s most underrated films, The Informant, another Soderbergh effort, sees him play Mark Whitacre, a real-life whistleblower in a 1990s price-fixing scandal. Whitacre has good intentions but he’s also a fantasist about his own importance. It’s a cracking comical performance from Damon, but one that has the gravity of underlying pathos.
Watch: Digital rental
THE MARTIAN
Was there anyone else we would’ve watched turn faeces into a potato crop with as much enthusiasm as we watched Damon’s Mark Watney, the astronaut stranded in space whose smarts and determination fuelled a hero’s journey for the ages. This was also the last great movie Ridley Scott made.
Watch: Disney+
INTERSTELLAR
Before he was the good guy in space, Damon played the bad guy in space a year earlier in his first collaboration with Christopher Nolan. That likeable everyman quality helped to keep his character’s true colours hidden until the shocking reveal – and you have to applaud everyone involved for pulling it off.
Watch: HBO Max, Stan, Prime
CONTAGION
Contagion is a sprawling movie with many subplots and a large ensemble, but Damon’s suburban dad Mitch Emhoff is the emotional centre of the film. He’s not a scientist or an expert, he just wants him and his daughter to survive the pandemic while grieving the loss of Gwyneth Paltrow.
When everyone rewatched Contagion in the early days of Covid, it was Damon’s character that became the audience surrogate because everyone saw themselves in him, and wanted to be him because he’s the guy that makes it through.
Watch: Prime
BEHIND THE CANDELABRA
Michael Douglas had the flashier role as Liberace, but it was Damon’s Thorson who operated as the audience’s way into the late singer’s extravagant world. As Liberace’s younger lover and adopted son, he was swallowed up by the wants and demands of his famous companion.
Watch: Stan
TRUE GRIT
You can always trust the Coen brothers to take a movie star and bust their movie star mystique and make them seem like a fool (they did it over and over again with George Clooney). And so it is the Coens do with Damon, here as a Texas Ranger who is pursuing the same scoundrel as our heroes – but with a lot less competence.
Watch: Digital rental
INVICTUS
Look, the accent isn’t great. American actors seem to have an even harder time with the South African twang than they do with an Australian one, but Damon affords himself relatively well as a white rugby player for the Springboks during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, a crucial event for a country still dealing with the aftermath of apartheid.
Watch: Digital rental
THE DEPARTED
On the surface, you might think that Leonardo DiCaprio should play the mob plant masquerading as a good cop and Damon should be the decent cop going undercover as a bad dude. But Martin Scorsese knew it would be more interesting to subvert those expectations in this Boston gangster drama with a high body count.
Watch: Prime
SYRIANA
Stephen Gaghan’s tense political drama about the thorny relationship between US institutions and Middle East oil producers netted George Clooney an Oscar, but Damon’s role as an ethically compromised energy analyst who makes some interesting choices while grieving a family death is nevertheless a crucial part of this great film.
Watch: Netflix, SBS on Demand
DOGMA
Kevin Smith’s comedy about a pair of vengeful fallen angels trying to trick their way back into heaven (and thereby negating all of his existence) is a talky ensemble piece, but the joy here for Damon fans is watching him and Affleck riff and spark.
Watch: Digital rental
