Some viewers may have first discovered Matt Damon during a memorable dinner scene in Donald Petrie's 1988 film “Mystic Pizza.” Damon later appeared as an extra in “Field of Dreams” and as one of several students handsome in the boarding school thriller “”. School Ties” in 1992, both with his long-time friend and collaborator Ben Affleck. Damon went on to get some screen time in Edward Zwick's “Courage Under Fire” before giving his first major performance in Francis Ford Coppola's “The Rainmaker” in 1997. That same year, Damon and Affleck became the Academy favorites for writing and starring in Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting. The duo won an Academy Award for the film's screenplay and have been major Hollywood stars ever since.
Having gained the influence to be eclectic and the fame to get noticed, Damon was drawn to projects by established directors. Having already worked with Coppola and Van Sant, Damon appeared, in the years immediately following, in “Saving Private Ryan”, directed by Steven Spielberg, “Dogma”, directed by Kevin Smith, and “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, directed by Steven Spielberg. Directed by Anthony Minghella, “The Legend of Bagger Vance” directed by Robert Redford, “Titan EE” directed by Don Bluth and “The Departed” directed by Martin Scorsese.
Damon also continued to work with Van Sant and at the same time became a regular player for Steven Soderbergh, Paul Greengrass and George Clooney. He even appeared in two Terry Gilliam films and two Ridley Scott films. The guy loves working with legends.
As it happens, he also loves watching movies directed by legends. In 2021, Damon gave an interview to Rotten Tomatoes and, naturally, the outlet asked him to name his five favorite movies. It just so happened that three of them were produced by directors I had worked with before.
Spielberg, Scorsese and Coppola have directed some of Matt Damon's favorite films
Damon, like many of us, isn't sure what his answer is for his favorite movie of all time, since that kind of thing fluctuates depending on the mood of the theater. However, you find that you comfortably rely on the standard response when your feet are on fire. It's also possible that he feels comfortable being included because he worked with its director on “The Rainmaker.” To quote Damon directly:
“I always said “The Godfather Part II.” I think this movie is pretty close to perfect. It is impossible to answer this question, your five favorite films, but I would leave this one aside, just for its directing, writing, acting and production value. I mean it's really amazing. I remember talking to Scorsese on The Departed and saying, “Hey Marty: 'The Godfather 1' or 'The Godfather 2?'” And immediately he said, “The Godfather 2.” I said: Why, and he said: I had more money.
Damon also included Scorsese's 1990 crime epic “GoodFellas” among his favorite films, saying he couldn't stop watching it once he started. He was impressed by her acting and direction, as well as her intense, bloody energy. “It doesn't seem that long,” Damon explained. “It's just relentless.”
Because the actor had worked with Spielberg on “Saving Private Ryan” (he was Private Ryan), Damon seemed obligated to include one of the modern blockbuster master's first films: the blockbuster “Jaws.” He said he liked the fact that the shark was not visible for most of the movie, although he knew that was only because the movie's mechanical shark malfunctioned during most of filming. The shark is a creature of the imagination. What's more, Damon loves Spielberg's art and says:
“It's as if when Hemingway writes, he always says, 'I know all those words.' “I never thought of putting them in that order.” So nothing Steven does is a gimmick, he has the same equipment as everyone else, he's just better at telling visual stories.
in fact.
Kubrick, Brest and Tarantino have directed Damon's other favorite films
It's very easy to include Stanley Kubrick's 1964 political satire, Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, as one of your favorites, since it is universally considered brilliant, satirical, and sinister. Kubrick was very sarcastic about the state of the world. He witnessed the proliferation of nuclear weapons with growing horror and felt that a volatile, buffoonish, or mentally unstable politician could end the world for any ridiculous reason he wanted.
However, Damon was moved less by the satire than by Peter Sellers' performance as Dr. Strangelove, a weak-willed American president and visiting British dignitary. (Sellers was actually scheduled to play a fourth role, but claimed he was exhausted from getting out of it.) Damon liked Sellers' comedic brilliance and explained:
“In fact, Peter Sellers catches my attention. Sellers, I mean, is great in this movie. And I was sitting there wondering, should I go to…?be there? Should I opt for another Sellers film? I just wanted Sellers to be on this list because he was great. And this is a film in which he was as dynamic as ever. It was performed (…) by three or four different people (…) and they were all completely different and absolutely wonderful. “This guy was so cool and so funny.”
Finally, fifth place on Damon's list goes, surprisingly, to Martin Brest's hit comedy “Midnight Run” from 1988. In the film, Robert De Niro plays a bounty hunter who has to make a cross-country trip with hands tied. prisoner, played by the mafia accountant. By Charles Grodin. Damon says he watched the movie constantly in college, so it became personal to him. Perhaps it's no coincidence that De Niro… who directed Damon in “The Good Shepherd” stars in the title role.
Interestingly, Damon also cited Quentin Tarantino's “Pulp Fiction” as one of his favorite films when he gave an interview to Letterboxed “in 2023.” “What do I mean? “We got really excited about what movies could do, and that was definitely a highlight of my life in the movie world.”
Surprisingly, Damon has yet to headline a Tarantino film.
