Today's Guardian newspaper ranks this actor's top 20 movies in order - although who does the ranking is not stated.

I had not realised his career and that of his pal Ben Affleck were basically on the skids until they turned to screenwriting and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay with Good Will Hunting in 1997. It achieves #11 on the list. The last two are 1990s movies which I have not seen. #18 is Syriana which I did enjoy. #13, #14 and #15 are three of probably his best-known movies - The Martian, Saving Private Ryan and Oppenheimer in that order.

Perhaps inevitably the first three in his Bourne series come in at #10, #5 and #3. Thankfully his last one titled simply Bourne, in my view the worst, is not on the list.

But two of my favourites are there. Behind the Candelabra comes in at #6. And for me the most fascinating and the one i enjoyed almost the most is The Talented Mr. Ripley which is there at #1. The Ripley movie is out on Netflix in mid-January. Perhaps of interest is that Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the role given to Damon. And Jude Law took a lot of persuaion to sign for the Dickie Greenleaf role. He did not want to be playing what he thought would be a "pretty boy" role - something he stated later was "insane arrogance" on his part.

A econd Ripley movie was made with Ripley now living in a mansion in Italy as an assassin with John Malkovich in the lead. The novelist Patricia Highsmith wrote four Ripley sequels and all were made into much less good early movies or later TV series. The Malkovich movie Ripley's Game was in fact based on the third in that series. I wish the director Antony Minghella could have been persuaded to make a second with the adventures of Matt Damon as he develops his role as a serial killer.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/08/matt-damons-best-films-ranked

Haha! @Olddaddy on the vengeance trail! It will become a predictable pattern.

On 1/8/2026 at 9:37 PM, PeterRS said:

Today's Guardian newspaper ranks this actor's top 20 movies in order - although who does the ranking is not stated.

I had not realised his career and that of his pal Ben Affleck were basically on the skids until they turned to screenwriting and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay with Good Will Hunting in 1997. It achieves #11 on the list. The last two are 1990s movies which I have not seen. #18 is Syriana which I did enjoy. #13, #14 and #15 are three of probably his best-known movies - The Martian, Saving Private Ryan and Oppenheimer in that order.

Perhaps inevitably the first three in his Bourne series come in at #10, #5 and #3. Thankfully his last one titled simply Bourne, in my view the worst, is not on the list.

But two of my favourites are there. Behind the Candelabra comes in at #6. And for me the most fascinating and the one i enjoyed almost the most is The Talented Mr. Ripley which is there at #1. The Ripley movie is out on Netflix in mid-January. Perhaps of interest is that Leonardo DiCaprio turned down the role given to Damon. And Jude Law took a lot of persuaion to sign for the Dickie Greenleaf role. He did not want to be playing what he thought would be a "pretty boy" role - something he stated later was "insane arrogance" on his part.

A econd Ripley movie was made with Ripley now living in a mansion in Italy as an assassin with John Malkovich in the lead. The novelist Patricia Highsmith wrote four Ripley sequels and all were made into much less good early movies or later TV series. The Malkovich movie Ripley's Game was in fact based on the third in that series. I wish the director Antony Minghella could have been persuaded to make a second with the adventures of Matt Damon as he develops his role as a serial killer.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jan/08/matt-damons-best-films-ranked

The one thing I remember about Behind the Candelabra was how good I thought Matt Damon was.