[13][14][nb 1] He attended Harvard University as a member of the class of 1992, residing in Lowell House, but left before receiving his degree to take a lead role in the film Geronimo: An American Legend.

While at Harvard, as an exercise for an English class, Damon wrote an essay in the form of a film treatment which was later developed into the screenplay Good Will Hunting (for which he received an Academy Award).

[23] He left the school in 1992, a semester (12 credits) shy of completing his Bachelor of Arts in English to feature in Geronimo: An American Legend[20][24] in Los Angeles, erroneously expecting the movie to become a big success.

[32][33] The film received critical praise; Quentin Curtis of The Daily Telegraph found "real wit and vigour, and some depth" in their writing and Emanuel Levy of Variety wrote that Damon "gives a charismatic performance in a demanding role that's bound to catapult him to stardom.

[39] Speaking of his "overnight success" through Good Will Hunting, Damon said by that time he had been working in the cinema for 11 years, but still found the change "nearly indescribable—going from total obscurity to walking down a street in New York and having everybody turn and look".

[40] Before the film, Damon played the lead in the critically acclaimed drama The Rainmaker (1997), where he was recognized by the Los Angeles Times as "a talented young actor on the brink of stardom.

[42] After meeting Damon on the set of Good Will Hunting, director Steven Spielberg cast him in the brief title role in the 1998 World War II film Saving Private Ryan.

[45] An adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's 1955 novel of same name, the film costarred Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Cate Blanchett, and received praise from critics.

[37] Variety said of his work in All the Pretty Horses: "[Damon] just doesn't quite seem like a young man who's spent his life amidst the dust and dung of a Texas cattle ranch.

[56] Damon, alongside Affleck and others, produced the documentary series Project Greenlight, aired on HBO and later Bravo, which helped newcomers develop their first film.

[67][68] In a review for The Bourne Supremacy, BBC's Nev Pierce called the film "a brisk, engrossing and intelligent thriller", adding, "Damon is one hell of an action hero.

[70] He played a fictionalized version of Wilhelm Grimm alongside Heath Ledger in Terry Gilliam's fantasy adventure The Brothers Grimm (2005), which was a critically panned commercial failure;[37] The Washington Post concluded, "Damon, constantly flashing his newscaster's teeth and flaunting a fake, 'Masterpiece Theatre' dialect, comes across like someone who got lost on the way to an audition for a high school production of The Pirates of Penzance.

[76][nb 4] According to Forbes in August 2007, Damon was the most bankable star of the actors reviewed, his last three films at that time averaged US$29 at the box office for every dollar he earned.

"[82] He made a guest appearance in 2009 on the sixth-season finale of Entourage as himself, where he tries to pressure Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) into donating to his real foundation ONEXONE.

(2009),[85] in which his Golden Globe-nominated work was described by Entertainment Weekly as such: "The star – who has quietly and steadily turned into a great Everyman actor – is in nimble control as he reveals his character's deep crazies.

[12] During season 5 of 30 Rock, he appeared as a guest star in the role of Liz Lemon's boyfriend in the episodes "I Do Do", "The Fabian Strategy", "Live Show", and "Double-edged Sword".

[98] In January 2012, Damon signed a multiyear deal to be the voice of TD Ameritrade advertisements, replacing Sam Waterston as the discount brokerage's spokesman.

[119] In 2021, Damon starred in Tom McCarthy's crime drama Stillwater, playing an unemployed oil rig worker from Oklahoma who sets out with a French woman to prove his convicted daughter's innocence.

The film, set in medieval France and based on the book of the same name, focuses on the true story of a knight, Jean de Carrouges, portrayed by Damon, who challenges his former friend to a judicial duel after he's accused of raping his wife.

[128][129] Damon, alongside George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Don Cheadle, David Pressman, and Jerry Weintraub, is one of the founders of Not On Our Watch Project, an organization that focuses global attention and resources to stop and prevent mass atrocities such as in Darfur.

He is an ambassador for ONEXONE, a nonprofit foundation committed to supporting, preserving, and improving the lives of children at home in Canada, the United States, and around the world.

[136] Water.org has partnered with corporate sponsors to promote awareness and raise funds to support its mission of bringing safe, clean, cost-effective drinking water and sanitation to developing countries.

[141][142] In a television advertisement made for broadcast during the 2018 Super Bowl of the United States' National Football League (NFL), he promoted Water.org and Stella Artois's role in supporting its work.

[147] In The Independent, Nathan Place wrote, "Twitter is cringing after a TV commercial starring Matt Damon compared trading cryptocurrency to mankind's greatest achievements.

In the ad, which aired during Sunday night’s NFL games, Mr Damon makes an abstract plug for crypto.com – a platform for exchanging digital currencies like Bitcoin – while striding past images of explorers and astronauts.

The story included a series of tweets, among them one by Carole Cadwalladr of The Observer in which she wrote, "There isn't enough yuck in the world to describe Matt Damon advertising a Ponzi scheme and comparing it to the moon landings.

"[149] Jody Rosen in the New York Times said that "There is something unseemly, to put it mildly, about the famous and fabulously wealthy urging crypto on their fans" and "The bleakness of that pitch is startling.

On October 10, Sharon Waxman, a former reporter for The New York Times, mentioned that Damon and Russell Crowe had made direct phone calls to her to vouch for the head of Miramax Italy, Fabrizio Lombardo.

[194] In March 2018, Damon and Affleck announced they would adopt the inclusion rider agreement in all their future production deals through their company Pearl Street Films.

[195] In August 2021, Damon sparked controversy after stating in an interview with The Sunday Times that he had only "months ago" stopped using the word "fag", saying that it "was commonly used when I was a kid, with a different application".