Fox has also performed in eleven feature films, including We Are Marshall (2006), Vantage Point (2008), Alex Cross (2012), Emperor (2012) and Bone Tomahawk (2015).

[4] His mother was a teacher, and his father, who had been a consultant for an oil company, raised longhorn cattle and horses, and grew barley for Coors beer.

[3][5] Fox attended Wind River High School in Pavillion, Wyoming and transferred to Deerfield Academy during his senior year and graduated in 1985.

In 1994, Fox was cast in a starring role as Charlie Salinger, the eldest of five siblings who lose both parents in a car accident on the 1994–2000 teen drama Party of Five, co-starring with Scott Wolf, Neve Campbell, Jennifer Love Hewitt, and Lacey Chabert.

[10] Fox was nominated for a Golden Globe in the category "Best Actor – Television Series Drama",[11] won the 2005 Satellite Award, and shared the 2006 Screen Actors Guild Award for "Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series", for his role in Lost.

On December 2, 2006, Fox hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guests Tenacious D. In 2006, he co-starred with Matthew McConaughey in the sports drama We Are Marshall.

He also played a bit part in the action film Smokin' Aces (along with Lost's co-star Néstor Carbonell and future cast member Kevin Durand) and starred in the 2008 thriller Vantage Point.

[15] In 2011, he starred in the stage play In a Forest, Dark and Deep with Olivia Williams in London's West End.

The film was a critical and commercial failure but Fox was praised for his transformation and credibility in a vastly different role from Lost's Jack Shephard.

[22] Directed by Miguel Ángel Vivas, the film is an adaptation of Juan de Dios Garduño's bestselling novel, Y pese a todo.

A bonus disc released with The Complete First Series of Lost features "The Art of Matthew Fox", showing pictures he took of the cast and crew while on set.

"[28] On August 28, 2011, Fox was arrested for an alleged assault of a female bus driver in Cleveland, Ohio.

In May 2012, the bus driver withdrew a civil suit after her lawyer departed and revealed that she "intentionally failed and refused to provide full and timely cooperation and information".