Readers’ Poll: The 10 Best Matt Damon Movies

Franchise movies tend to make less and less money as times goes on, but the Matt Damon's Bourne films were so incredibly popular that the third one was far and away the most lucrative. It reunited Damon with Bourne Supremacy director Paul Greengrass and it once again featured Damon as a spy whose memory has been erased. The whole movie is really a master class in action film directing, and proved to be so successful that when Damon wasn't immediately ready to sign on for a fourth one the studio simply brought in Jeremy Renner and carried on the franchise. But don't worry. Next summer Matt Damon will return as Jason Bourne once again. He's not going to let Renner run away with his franchise. 

Back in 2004, Matt Damon was filming The Brothers Grimm in Prague when he got a call from his Harvard buddies Dave Mandel, Alec Berg and Jeff Schaffer. They were shooting the raunchy teen movie Eurotrip and wanted to know if he'd film a cameo that merely involved lip-syncing a song called "Scotty Doesn't Know," a lovely ditty about having an affair with a guy's girlfriend. The movie tanked, but it's gone on to become a minor cult classic and Matt Damon was a great sport for doing this. 

Steven Spielberg told the story of World War II through the lens of the Holocaust with 1993's Schindler's List, and five years later he told it via the experiences of the American soldiers that launched the Normandy Invasion. After the harrowing opening scene at Normandy, the movies becomes a journey through the hellscape of war-ravaged Europe as a group of military men try to track down a soldier whose brothers all died. Matt Damon portrayed Private Ryan himself, showing his incredible range and cementing himself as an A-list movie star. 

Matt Damon's late 1990s winning streak continued with The Talented Mr. Ripley. He portrayed a New York City grifter in the 1950s that gets mixed in the drama of a rich family. He travels to Europe and tries to convince the playboy son to return to America, but he winds up killing him in a fit of rage. Things only get more complicated from there, but it's a stellar thriller that grossed $130 million and won rave reviews. 

Just one year after portraying a math genius in Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon returned to the big screen as a poker genius in Rounders. He loses $30,000 to a Russian mobster, which is never a good thing. He's given five days to get it back, and spends the rest of the film frantically trying to put the money together. The ultimate lesson seems to be that if you're down a ton in gambling, just keep gambling more and more and eventually you'll figure something out. It was a modest hit, but it's retained a devoted following. 

To be fair, Matt Damon does not make a physical appearance in this movie. No human being does. It's entirely puppets. Created by South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the riotous 2004 movie is a satire of American foreign policy and celebrities that can't help but voice their opinions about political matters. They didn't mean to make Matt Damon's puppet especially stupid, but when it came back from the workshop all deformed they just went with it and had him say nothing but "MATT. DAMOOOON" over and over. The joke never gets old, and Damon himself even found it funny. "All the comedy they’re doing is really next-level stuff," he said. "Also, I liked being included as a person who was against the Iraq war."

Kevin Smith was at the peak of his Hollywood powers when he put together his 1999 religious satire Dogma, which featured Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as angels that were banished from Heaven. It was their first time appearing onscreen together since Good Will Hunting, but this film didn't exactly have the mainstream appeal of that movie. It did, however, have Alanis Morissette as God, Chris Rock as the forgotten 13th apostle and George Carlin as a cardinal, as well as Jay and Silent Bob. It may not be as immediately accessible as Clerks or Mallrats, but it is a thoroughly enjoyable movie that gets better with repeat viewings. 

Matt Damon's career took a bit of a dip in the early 2000s when All the Pretty Horses, The Legend of Bagger Vance and The Majestic all stiffed with audiences, but he regained some steam with a small role in Oceans 11 and came roaring back in 2002 with The Bourne Identity. Based on Robert Ludlum's books, the film featured him playing an American who washes up onshore in Italy with no memories but strangely advanced combat and language skills. He soon sets off to figure how he wound up in this state, and who is after him. It was a huge hit that launched a mega franchise and made sure Matt Damon's great, great grandkids will be quite wealthy. 

In this stellar 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, Matt Damon plays an Irish-American mobster that infiltrates the Massachusetts State Police just as a police officer played by Leonardo DiCaprio enters the mob as a mole. Things get very messy and ultimately very bloody, but Scorsese never lets the tension die down for a second and by the end the death count is about as high as Hamlet. They didn't give Scorsese the Best Director Academy Award for Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Taxi Driver or any of his other movies, but he finally got it for this one. 

Before Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon was known as "Whatshisname from School Ties and Courage Under Fire." After Good Will Hunting, nobody would ever forget his name again. He wrote the screenplay about a troubled math genius with Ben Affleck and watched it become one of the most acclaimed movies of 1997. They won a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, turning them into A-listers almost overnight. Damon and Affleck have seen ups and downs since this movie, but it was the key moment that forever changed their lives. It's also a damn good movie.