Every Getting Matt Damon Back Home Movie, Ranked

Matt Damon coming back home has become one of the funniest Hollywood jokes. While it was not planned, the actor seems to have starred in three major films where he has been stranded in a faraway location, and the film’s protagonists had to go on a mission to bring him back (or at least make plans to do so).

Now that Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey sees Damon play Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who has to travel back home after the Trojan War, we are looking at the actor’s previous ‘Get Matt Damon Back Home’ movies and ranking them. Unsurprisingly, there is another Nolan movie in the list.

Movie Name	The Odyssey
Directed by	Christopher Nolan
Cast	Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, Lupita Nyong’o, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo
Release Date	July 17, 2026
Studio	Universal Pictures

3 Interstellar

In Christopher Nolan’s sci-fi masterpiece, Interstellar, Matt Damon is part of an ensemble cast and shows up only about two hours into the movie. He plays Dr. Mann, the heroic astronaut who leads the Lazarus Project and travels through the wormhole to find other habitable worlds, knowing that they will never return. When the Endurance crew finds him, however, he is not the hero we heard about.

The reason why Interstellar ranks low in the list, despite being an incredible movie, is that getting Matt Damon back home is not the central plot of the film. Cooper and the crew go on the mission to figure out which planet to establish a human colony, and only decide on Mann’s planet to be the target midway through.

Resources in the movie are not spent on getting Damon back home, but on finding a new world. Mann’s return journey is only a consequence of that action.

Where to Watch (USA) – Paramount+

2 The Martian

Ridley Scott’s The Martian was the first Andy Weir book to be adapted before Project Hail Mary (the latter is so much better). It sees Matt Damon’s Dr. Mark Watney, a botanist on a Mars mission, who gets stranded on the red planet after a storm. After surviving the crash, he begins to cultivate potatoes and tries to contact Earth.

The Martian is a more direct version of a get Matt Damon back home movie. Unlike in Interstellar, NASA’s main mission is to get him back, and his crew faces several bureaucratic nightmares to ensure the plan works. Damon, meanwhile, tries his best to get out of Mars as well, and his journey back home becomes all the more fruitful due to both of their efforts.

Where to Watch (USA) – Peacock

1 Saving Private Ryan

The OG ‘get Matt Damon back’ home movie, which started the meme. Steven Spielberg’s World War II drama Saving Private Ryan is exactly what the joke is about, bringing Matt Damon’s Private Ryan back home to his family in the middle of the war. The film begins with the Normandy invasion and sees Tom Hanks’ Captain Miller lead a group on the mission.

The film is an incredible story of resilience, patriotism, and humanity in the face of war. Even after the company finds Ryan, he refuses to return as he wants to serve in the war. The final moments of Hanks’ Miller as he faces an oncoming tank still haunt us, as he tells Ryan not to waste the life that has been saved because of the crew. Spielberg should have won the Oscar for Best Picture for this.

Where to Watch (USA) – Fubo

Rank	Movie Name	Rotten Tomatoes (As of May 7, 2026)	Reasons
1	Saving Private Ryan	Tomatometer | Popcornmeter – 94%|95%	Originated the ‘get Matt Damon back home’ meme, an incredible story of war and brotherhood
2	The Martian	Tomatometer | Popcornmeter – 91%|91%	Follows the theme, presents science with a lot of humor and entertainment, great story of survival
3	Interstellar	Tomatometer | Popcornmeter – 73%|87%	Shows that space can be a cruel place, the celestial powers of love, and humanity’s quest for progress

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Which one do you think is the best movie in the trope? Comment below.