The 12 Best Movies Featuring Matt Damon in a Principal Role

Matt Damon is widely predicted to be nominated for an Oscar for his next big role in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. That blockbuster is set for a July release through Universal Pictures.

Damon has not won an acting Oscar yet despite some great performances in films like the 12 that are about to be named in this article. Damon won his notable Academy Award for co-writing the 1997 masterpiece, Good Will Hunting.

When looking back at that masterpiece, it’s clear to see that Damon had given the performance of his career early on. To really highlight Matt Damon’s talent, we’ve decided to compile a list of his best performances.

Without further ado, here are The 12 Best Movies Featuring Matt Damon in a Principal Role.

1. Good Will Hunting (1997)

They don’t make them like Good Will Hunting anymore. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote this wonderfully conceived human drama about a mathematical genius who is forced to choose between a highly paid career and the love of his life – a girl named Skylar (Minnie Driver). Gus Van Sant directed this masterpiece that featured Damon and Robin Williams.

Williams plays a therapist named Sean who guides Will (Damon) through the ups and downs of life as they confront the past, the present and the future with deeply moving results all around.

Damon grabs on to the role and never lets go of it as he creates romantic chemistry with Driver and a moving bond with the character played by Williams.

Two great scenes here say everything there is to say about Damon’s powerful work in the picture. One is a breakup scene between Skylar and Will in which Damon hits it out of the park as he ably shows the character’s insecurities and bad judgment calls. Damon is fierce and unpredictable in this scene as his character screams at Skylar and suggests she doesn’t really love him.

Damon almost tops that greatness in a part where Will realizes that Sean cares about him and that Will’s past (his abuse and criminal activity) was, alas, not his fault.

Damon sinks his teeth into the role right from the opening scenes and it all comes to a high point in the picture right here as we see Will let go of the wall he has put up between himself and others for most of his life. Damon’s Will cries tears as he hugs Sean and the audience can see Damon’s masterful work as an actor very clearly.

2. We Bought a Zoo (2011)

Matt Damon excelled once again in 2011’s Cameron Crowe-directed family picture, We Bought a Zoo. Damon portrayed Benjamin Mee, a man who quit his high-profile job to try to offer his family an authentic experience.

He wants to help his kids realize the true beauties found in every day life. So, he buys his family a zoo, so to speak, and has a hard time sustaining its conception and maintenance from a financial standpoint. Here, Damon quietly proved he could be effective in a role as an average dad with huge dreams and aspirations.

We Bought a Zoo never steers away from the issues and themes that it presents to its audience. Thanks to Damon’s fine and nuanced work, one can see the joys the Mee family experienced in helping raise animals together as a family unit.

Damon has a great supporting cast working with him in this film. Elle Fanning is near perfect in the role of the young girl on the grounds, Lily, who gets to love and respect Benjamin’s sometimes timid son. Scarlett Johansson gets to play a smart character as well who bonds with Benjamin over the course of the film.

Damon is pretty much the glue that holds it all together. He’s easy to sympathize with and root for. Although at times it seems that Benjamin is holding on to his family by a very thin thread, it’s the love Benjamin has for his family (and for the animals) that conquers everything in the end.

3. Stuck On You (2003)

The Farrelly Brothers got Matt Damon to be funnier than ever in his role as a conjoined twin in the hilarious, Stuck on You. In this humorous and delightful film, Damon and Greg Kinnear play Bob and Walt, twin brothers physically joined together who embark on a trip to California so that one of them can become an “actor.” Damon’s Bob yearns to meet a pen pal he’s been talking to and it’s all so much fun to watch.

Damon carefully plays his role as a lovable guy in just the right way that we can enjoy laughing with him and feeling all his passions through his ups and downs in life and Hollywood. Cher even makes a grand appearance here to make the movie rank among the very best comedies of the 2000’s as Damon never fails to amaze in his light but substantial role in the film.

Meryl Streep also pops up playing herself in a cameo in Stuck on You. In one of the funniest scenes, Bob and Walt go up to the movie star and wonder why there aren’t people bothering her for her autograph. Bob wonders why she is getting any attention when it is, indeed, he and Walt who are the ones bugging Ms. Streep.

This gem proves Damon can play something different from what he has played in the past. It is a funny, funny film.

4. The Martian (2015) 

Damon reaches for the stars with his work as Mark Watney in The Martian proving he is absolutely sensational in the Ridley Scott adaptation. As an astronaut on Mars trying to survive and make contact with Earth, Damon carries the movie the same way Tom Hanks held Cast Away against his back in 2000.

Damon gives one of his strongest and most nuanced performances as Mark. Damon’s performance so significant in this role. He ended up winning numerous accolades for the part, including an Oscar nod for Best Actor.

There was so much precision in The Martian that Damon needs to be on his toes in every single scene the same way he is in Good Will Hunting. As far as challenging roles go, playing Mark took Damon to uncharted territory for him as an actor as he let his movements and expressions shape the part he played to a tee.

Scott’s film proved that Damon still had what it takes to carry a movie all by himself. This movie may have been peppered with plenty of character actors, but Damon was pretty much the whole show any way you slice the pie.

5. Saving Private Ryan (1998) 

There’s a reason Steven Spielberg’s World War II action picture is named Saving Private Ryan. Damon plays the title character even though you don’t see him on-screen early on. Tom Hanks is technically the lead here, but Damon’s work in the picture as Private Ryan is the very heart of the movie.

If the search for Private Ryan wasn’t so intense and wasn’t so daring, Damon’s work wouldn’t be as strong. All the build-up to Damon’s grand appearance in the movie is well-deserved and Damon once again proves he’s great at interacting with other character performers under a master director’s guidance.

With stars like Hanks, Tom Sizemore and Edward Burns surrounding him, Damon manages to knock out a home run with his earnest and heartfelt turn in Spielberg’s action-filled and touching masterwork.

6. Air (2023) 

Damon and Ben Affleck teamed up again for the Nike drama, Air which is perfectly made under Affleck’s terrific leadership. Damon plays Sonny Vaccaro, the most ordinary and extraordinary true-to-life character Damon has played.

In the film, Damon’s character is under pressure similar to Benjamin Mee from We Bought a Zoo. In Air, Damon proves he has what it takes to play someone down-to-earth with the same kind of integrity the actor brings to some of his showier Hollywood roles.

Damon’s scenes with both Viola Davis (as Michael Jordan’s mom) and Ben Affleck are equally stellar here. Damon brings the complexity to the role that the actor is known so well for.

As Sonny must work against all odds to succeed, Damon captures all of Sonny’s flaws as well as his strengths. This is a strong piece of acting from the amazing Damon.

7. The Departed (2006) 

The Departed could also be deemed another supporting performance by Damon, except it’s really a leading role in the grand scheme of things. In the movie, Damon gets all of the audience’s attention, especially in his scenes opposite the terrific Vera Farmiga.

Leonardo DiCaprio, Jack Nicholson and Mark Wahlberg also starred in The Departed as well and kept Damon working hard to create an intriguing character amidst all the plot-heavy details in the movie. Proving that Damon can perform on the same level of some actors who have even more illustrious careers than his own.

What this movie offers audiences is Damon being cast against type as a character who may not make it out of the story alive. Watching Damon appear in scenes so fluid only Martin Scorsese could direct them this well, audiences will find complexity, which Damon brings to his unique role.

Damon has never been more mysterious and alive than he is in The Departed whether his character makes it out from the proceedings alive or not.

8. The Adjustment Bureau (2011) 

Damon is the perfect choice to play opposite Emily Blunt in The Adjustment Bureau, a science-fiction romance movie that resembles The Truman Show at times. Again, Damon plays a part that stands out from others he’s played in the past.

This is a tense nail-biter where the stars are on the run from folks who could threaten the very fabric of the beautiful relationship that they have just discovered. Damon keeps it interesting with a very intense leading turn where we want to see him get the girl and the happily ever after.

The adjustment bureau tries to secure their own way of life and let it take center stage, but Damon’s character ends up sort of outsmarting the bureau by the time the end credits roll. Damon is smart enough to play the role in a way that makes the action plausible.

This is a romance movie that also works as a thriller. Damon is perfectly cast in it as the picture offers the actor a chance to find love and thwart bad buys in a crowd-pleaser that never lets up.

9. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Damon is at his career-peak around the time he made the great The Talented Mr. Ripley from filmmaker Anthony Minghella. Told in the style of a thriller, Damon runs away with the intense role of Tom Ripley and never comes up for air.

He’s the antihero we may want to see get away with murder because of the wonderful way Damon inhibits his role here. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and the late Philip Seymour Hoffman are also magnificent in this very dark movie with strange ambitions that are found in the mind of the character that Damon plays so well.

Matt Damon is so exceptional as the Mr. Ripley that it is easy to see the actor potentially playing less heroic roles than he is accustomed to. Although Damon could clearly fluctuate between being the monster-type he is in Minghella’s movie and the good guys he normally plays, it’s nice to see his range.

The Talented Mr. Ripley is really dark, but it’s great to see Damon working so hard to achieve the greatness that he captures in the role here.

10. The Bourne Identity (2002)

Jason Bourne is a character that Damon was born to play. In this well paced spy thriller, Bourne (Damon) has amnesia and must discover the secrets that surround him and endanger him.

This is a picture centered around the CIA, but it’s super easy to follow because Damon does what he does so well in The Bourne Identity. Damon plays the quintessential action hero and is simply top-notch in a role that reveals the character’s different layers so perfectly.

Damon made his stamp on the action film world with his work in this blockbuster movie. It’s hard to see anyone else playing Jason Bourne so well because Damon has so much of the essence of the role under his wing. He’s played the part a few times now and excelled time and time again.

11. John Grisham’s The Rainmaker (1997)

What happens when Matt Damon teams up with Danny DeVito in a courtroom movie? Magic happens that only filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola could properly bring to the screen. Damon is great as a lawyer out to prove that an insurance company is unfair and manipulative.

Damon is supported by actors like Jon Voight and actresses like Claire Danes and while the supporting cast was certainly fine, it was Damon who managed to excel more than anyone else. Unless you are talking about the outstanding performance from DeVito, who was equally dialed in.

Watching Damon and DeVito fight for justice is a totally engaging experience. John Grisham’s The Rainmaker offers one of Damon’s most mature roles for the actor when he was first coming into the public eye right around the time of Good Will Hunting.

12. Hereafter (2010)

Damon was in fine form with director Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter. He plays a man named George, who’s story revolves around a psychic and near death experiences and the possibilities of life after death.

Consider this a more down-to-earth version of What Dreams May Come, the 1998 Robin Williams film.

Damon’s solemn and intense work marks a mid-point in the actor’s career where he started taking on more mature roles that were full of creative depth. Not every creative choice is perfect in Hereafter, but Damon’s performance is right on target with the other-worldly themes the movie sets out to portray.

Damon shows his range as an actor and proves he can do quieter roles just as well as the louder ones he has played. Eastwood’s film is an overlooked masterwork.

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What are your favorite Matt Damon movies? Let us know in the comments.

 

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