Matt Damon And Ben Affleck Have Been Best Friends For 45 Years — Here's The Proof They Never Actually Broke Up

It Started Two Blocks Apart In Cambridge — And They Were Basically Forced Into It

Matt Damon was 10 and Ben Affleck was 8 when their moms, who knew each other professionally, set up a playdate in 1980. They lived two blocks apart in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and that proximity turned into a decades-long creative partnership that started with baseball and acting classes.

Affleck Basically Got Damon His Break — In A Movie Where Damon Actually Had The Bigger Role

Their first real onscreen collaboration was 1992's School Ties, a prep-school drama where Damon played the head bully and Affleck had a much smaller supporting part as a football player. It wasn't a hit — it only grossed $14.7 million — but it planted the seed for everything that came after.

Then They Co-Wrote A Little Script Called Good Will Hunting — And Wrecked The Oscars Stage

Damon started the screenplay for a Harvard playwriting class before bringing in Affleck to help finish it, and the two ended up starring in it together too. They won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in 1998 for a speech so unplanned that Affleck later admitted he thought "winning would be really scary," and it was.

Two Years Later They Were Fallen Angels Together — And Somehow It's The Fan-Favorite

In Kevin Smith's 1999 cult comedy Dogma, Damon and Affleck played Loki and Bartleby, two banished angels road-tripping to exploit a loophole back into Heaven. Smith has said Damon was cast opposite Affleck specifically because of the chemistry the pair showed in Good Will Hunting, and plenty of fans now call it the duo's best work together.

They Turned Filmmaking Into A Reality Show — And It Got Messier Than Expected

Damon and Affleck co-created and executive produced Project Greenlight, a documentary series that handed an unknown filmmaker the money and crew to make a real feature film, with the two of them serving as mentors and judges. It ran across five seasons between 2001 and 2023, and even weathered on-camera controversy over diversity in hiring during its 2015 HBO revival.

In 2012, They Made It Official And Started A Production Company Together

Affleck and Damon established Pearl Street Films in 2012, naming it after the Cambridge street they used to walk down to visit each other as kids. The company backed projects like Manchester by the Sea and The Last Duel before the pair dissolved it in 2022 to launch their new venture, Artists Equity.

Affleck Finally Got To Direct His Best Friend — Three Decades In

Despite their history, 2023's Air marked the very first time Affleck directed Damon in a film, with Affleck also co-starring as Nike co-founder Phil Knight opposite Damon's shoe executive Sonny Vaccaro. It was the debut release from their new studio Artists Equity, and Affleck called it an experience where they had "the honor of working with some of the best cast and crew in the business."

Their Latest Reunion Just Dropped — And It's Their First-Ever Action Movie Together

In January 2026, Damon and Affleck reteamed as Miami narcotics cops in Netflix's The Rip, marking their tenth film together and their first genre action collaboration despite each having a separate track record in the action space. It landed right as Damon geared up to promote The Odyssey, proof that no matter what solo epic he's fighting Cyclopes in, the guy from two blocks away is never far behind.