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Ben Affleck

Highest Rated: 100% Kiss the Future (2023)

Lowest Rated: 0% The Leisure Class (2015)

Birthday: Aug 15, 1972

Birthday:

Birthplace: Berkeley, California, USA

American actor, director, producer, and writer Ben Affleck experienced some of the highest highs and lowest lows possible over the course of a three-plus-decade career. He went from child actor to indie darling to Oscar winner to action star to paparazzi pariah to walking punchline to respected filmmaker to superhero to cautionary tale, but somehow always managed to stay an integral part of the zeitgeist, one of the last true leading men of Hollywood. Born in Berkeley, CA on August 15, 1972, Affleck's mother, Christopher Anne "Chris" Boldt, was a Harvard-educated elementary school teacher, while his father, Timothy Byers Affleck, was an aspiring playwright who held down a number of odd jobs over the years, including carpenter, auto mechanic, bookie, electrician, bartender, and most importantly, janitor at Harvard. When Affleck was three, his family moved from the West Coast back to Cambridge, MA, where younger brother and future co-star Casey was born. His childhood was far from happy: Affleck's father was a chronic alcoholic, and when his parents finally divorced in 1984, he recalled feeling a sense of "relief" that his father was out of the house (Timothy Affleck would eventually become homeless for two years due to his addiction, before entering rehab in Indio, CA, spending a full twelve years at the facility working as an addiction counselor). Around this time, 12-year-old Affleck began getting serious about pursuing a career in acting. He had already made an uncredited appearance in the indie drama "The Dark End of the Street" (1981) three years prior, but he soon landed his first big role in the PBS educational film "The Voyage of the Mimi" (PBS, 1984), thanks to his mother's friendship with a Cambridge-area casting director (though she secretly thought that acting was an insecure and "frivolous" profession, and hoped that her son would reconsider and become a teacher instead). Before long, Affleck was traveling across the country for auditions, often alongside Matt Damon, a friend from elementary school who proved to be just as ambitious and driven as Affleck was. The two teens saved their earnings in a joint bank account, and dreamed of one day moving to Los Angeles. After following a girlfriend to school at the University of Vermont, but dropping out after a few months after a basketball injury, Affleck moved to Los Angeles at the age of 18, where he majored in Middle Eastern affairs at Occidental College for a year and a half. While at Occidental, he directed student films, and landed a few small roles here and there, including playing Patrick Duffy's son in the TV film "Daddy" (NBC, 1991), taking an uncredited role as a basketball player in "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992), and popping up as a prep school student in "School Ties" (1992). The following year, Affleck landed what would prove to be his breakout role, when he was cast in Richard Linklater's beloved high school stoner comedy "Dazed and Confused" (1993). Set on the last day of school in a Texas high school in 1976, Affleck played O'Bannon, an obnoxious, borderline psychotic jock who purposely flunks his senior year so that he can participate in the school's annual freshman hazing tradition. Though "Dazed and Confused" was a flop upon its initial release, it has since grown into a cult classic. Affleck's first leading role was an aimless sad sack art student in the indie drama "Glory Daze" (1995); that same year he collaborated with the first time with writer/director Kevin Smith, playing a violent yuppie creep who manages a menswear outlet in Smith's sophomore film, "Mallrats" (1995). Though he had enjoyed some success up to that point, 1997 would prove to be the year that put Affleck on the map: he received rave reviews for his performance as a Korean War vet in "Going All the Way" (1997), and reunited with Smith for the acclaimed romantic comedy "Chasing Amy" (1997), in which he played a cartoonist who is madly in love with a woman who identifies as a lesbian. However, it was the success of Affleck's third film that year, "Good Will Hunting" (1997), that changed everything. What began as a 40-page assignment written by Damon for a playwriting class at Harvard, the pair decided to expand into a feature-length screenplay after becoming roommates in Los Angeles in 1992. Affleck and Damon sold the screenplay to Castle Rock Entertainment in 1994, but after a lengthy battle with the studio over finding a proper director, the rights were sold to Miramax, who hired indie auteur Gus Van Sant to direct. Affleck and Damon spent the next two years in Boston. Upon its release in the fall of 1997, "Good Will Hunting" was an instant sensation. Damon starred as Will Hunting, a janitor from South Boston working at Harvard who is secretly a genius-level prodigy (or, as Casey Affleck's character Morgan puts it at one point, "wicked smaaaht.") After a brush with the law, he accepts a plea deal which involves training under a strict, self-serious mathematics professor (Stellen Skarsgaard), and receiving counseling from a therapist with a broken heart and a similar blue collar background (Robin Williams), who helps Will to cope with his abusive childhood and pursue a relationship with Harvard med student Skylar (Minnie Driver). Affleck played the integral supporting role of Chucky, Will's best friend who eventually provides him the tough love he needs to pursue a better life for himself. Beautifully observed, endlessly quotable, heartbreaking, funny, and perfectly scored to the music of Philip Glass and the songs of Elliott Smith, "Good Will Hunting" received rave reviews from critics, and eventually pulled in over $100 million at the box office. Come Oscar season, the film was nominated for nine awards, including Best Picture, and walked away with two: Best Supporting Actor for Robin Williams, and for Best Original Screenplay, 25-year-old Ben Affleck and 27-year-old Matt Damon. To this day, Affleck is the youngest person to ever win in that category. Practically overnight, Damon became a serious prestige actor, while Affleck went down the road of leading man. The following year, he starred in "Armageddon" (1998), director Michael Bay's sci-fi action spectacle about a group of oil drillers trained by NASA to blow up a meteor that could wipe out all life on Earth. Critics scoffed, but "Armageddon" was the highest grossing film of the year. Affleck rounded out 1998 by appearing alongside then-girlfriend Gwyneth Paltrow in that year's Best Picture Oscar winner, the period romance "Shakespeare in Love" (1998). Next up was a detour into romantic comedy alongside Sandra Bullock in "Forces of Nature" (1999), and an onscreen reunion with Damon, for Kevin Smith's highly controversial, satirical look at Catholicism, "Dogma" (1999), in which the Affleck and Damon played a pair of fallen angels on a mission to destroy Earth and gain re-entry into the kingdom of Heaven. Meanwhile, Affleck was beginning to become interested in directing, and used the opportunity of appearing in the middling heist thriller "Reindeer Games" (2000) to shadow its vastly overqualified director, John Frankenheimer, on what turned out to be his final film before passing away in 2002. He also took a small turn as a corporate shark in "Boiler Room" (2000), and reunited with Paltrow for the romantic drama "Bounce" (2000), which was released right around the time the couple split up. Affleck then reunited with Michael Bay for the historical epic "Pearl Harbor" (2001), which found our leading man in a love triangle with a nurse (Kate Beckinsale) and his childhood best friend (Josh Hartnet). While the film's action scenes were predictably impressive, Bay proved to be utterly non-equipped to handle a splashy three-hour doomed romance, and Affleck's unfortunate Southern accent didn't help matters. The film made money, but critics scoffed. After a very meta cameo (playing both himself and his "Chasing Amy" character) in Kevin Smith's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" (2001), and an unsuccessful attempt at becoming the next Jack Ryan in "The Sum of All Fears" (2002), Affleck earned rave reviews for his performance as a morally compromised businessman pushed to the edge in the thriller "Changing Lanes" (2002). It would turn out to be the last accolades he would receive for awhile. In 2003, Affleck began dating Jennifer Lopez. While he had always been a tabloid fixture, the paparazzi's interest in "Bennifer," as they became known, pushed his public exposure to a point of over-saturation, to the point that GQ magazine named him the "world's most over-exposed actor." What didn't help matters was a series of high profile misfires and bombs: the ludicrous superhero flick "Daredevil" (2003), John Woo's futuristic thriller "Paycheck" (2003), and the dreaded "Gigli" (2003), one of the most notorious flops in recent memory, in which Affleck co-starred with Lopez, who by then was his fiancé. Affleck's bad luck continued into 2004, which found him appearing in Kevin Smith's ill-advised attempt at serious filmmaking, "Jersey Girl" (2004), and the horrendous family "comedy," "Surviving Christmas" (2004). To make matters worse, Affleck and Lopez called off their wedding the night before the ceremony was to take place, leading to much shaddenfreude in the press. A few months later, their relationship ended for good, and Affleck decided to take a much-needed break from acting. During this self-imposed hiatus, Affleck met and married actress Jennifer Garner, received rave reviews for his small role as "Superman" actor George Reeves in the neo-noir "Hollywoodland" (2006), and decided to take a dive into directing. His debut behind the camera was "Gone Baby Gone" (2007), a police procedural set in working class Boston, and starring his younger brother, Casey Affleck, as a private eye who uncovers a conspiracy surrounding the disappearance of a young girl. While it didn't light up the box office, the film was warmly received by critics, who noted Affleck's genuine talent as a director. While he continued to appear in small roles over the next few years, including turns in "He's Just Not That Into You" (2009), "State of Play" (2009), "Extract" (2009), and "The Company Men" (2010), Affleck was clearly focused on his directorial career. His sophomore effort, "The Town" (2010), was a kinetic heist film set in South Boston, and starred Affleck, Jeremy Renner, Blake Lively, and Rebecca Hall. Critics praised it, and it was a surprise box office hit. For his third film, "Argo" (2012), Affleck starred as a CIA agent who devises a plan to rescue six stranded U.S. diplomats during the 1979 Iran hostage crisis by pretending to be location scouting for a big budget sci-fi epic. "Argo" was a major hit with both critics and audiences, and despite the surprise of Affleck being snubbed for a Best Director nomination at that year's Oscars, "Argo" became the first film since the 1930s to win Best Picture without said nomination. Affleck then starred in Terrence Malick's little-seen "To the Wonder" (2012) and the flop thriller "Runner Runner" (2013) before taking on one of his most acclaimed leading roles, as a husband suspected of murdering his missing wife in David Fincher's adaptation of the popular novel "Gone Girl" (2014). The film was a box office hit, and critics noted Fincher's smart decision to cast Affleck as a character who is dealing with intense media scrutiny into his private life. Affleck's next move surprised everyone: he was cast as none other than Batman for Zach Snyder's superhero epic "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" (2016). While many initially questioned whether Affleck was right for the role, when the film was released, critics had many complaints, but the uniform opinion was that Affleck's take on both the caped crusader and his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, was one of the film's rare high points. Affleck would reprise the role for a cameo in "Suicide Squad" (2016), and as the lead of "Justice League" (2017), and there were plans for a stand-alone Batman film, which Affleck would also direct. However, the actor fell on some hard times. Despite receiving treatment for alcohol addiction in the past, Affleck fell off the wagon hard following the failure of his fourth directorial effort, the period gangster piece "Live by Night" (2016). 2017 saw Affleck take a break from the business, and focus instead on getting sober. During this time, the Batman project fell apart, and he and Garner separated after more than a decade of marriage, allegedly due to Affleck having an affair with their nanny. Their divorce was finalized in 2018, and Affleck sadly spent the next few years in a very public fight for sobriety, relapsing a number of times. Despite his woes, Affleck continued to work, in films including Gavin O'Connor's sports drama "The Way Back" (2020), and Dee Rees's political thriller "The Last Thing He Wanted" (2020).

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Highest rated movies

100% 98% Kiss the Future
Watchlist
100% 76% Bending the Arc
Watchlist
97% 94% Good Will Hunting
Watchlist
96% 90% Argo Watchlist
94% 86% Gone Baby Gone
Watchlist
93% 90% Dazed and Confused Watchlist 93% 98% Air Watchlist
92% 80% Shakespeare in Love
Watchlist
92% 85% The Town Watchlist
88% 87% Gone Girl
Watchlist

Filmography

Movies

Credit
75% No Score Yet Unstoppable Producer - 2024
87% No Score Yet Small Things Like These Executive Producer - 2024
40% 54% The Instigators Producer - 2024
75% 72% This Is Me... Now: A Love Story Rex Stone/Biker (Character) - 2024
100% 98% Kiss the Future Producer - 2023
32% 62% Hypnotic Daniel Rourke (Character) $4.5M 2023
93% 98% Air Phil Knight (Character),
Director,
Producer
$52.4M 2023
No Score Yet No Score Yet For People in Trouble Producer - 2023
No Score Yet No Score Yet Going All the Way: The Director's Edit Gunner Casselman (Character) - 2022
35% 24% Deep Water Vic (Character) - 2022
51% 70% The Tender Bar Uncle Charlie (Character) - 2021
82% 48% Clerk Self - 2021
85% 81% The Last Duel Count Pierre d'Alençon (Character),
Screenwriter,
Executive Producer
$10.8M 2021
71% 93% Zack Snyder's Justice League Batman/Bruce Wayne (Character),
Executive Producer
- 2021
85% 84% The Way Back Jack Cunningham (Character) - 2020
5% 14% The Last Thing He Wanted Treat Morrison (Character) - 2020
67% 93% Jay and Silent Bob Reboot Holden McNeil (Character) $2.8M 2019
70% 58% Triple Frontier Tom "Redfly" Davis (Character) - 2019
No Score Yet No Score Yet Far Bright Star Director - 2018
39% 67% Justice League Batman/Bruce Wayne (Character),
Executive Producer
$227.0M 2017
100% 76% Bending the Arc Executive Producer $12.2K 2017
35% 42% Live by Night Joe Coughlin (Character),
Director,
Screenwriter,
Producer
$10.4M 2016
53% 76% The Accountant Christian Wolff (Character) $86.2M 2016
29% 63% Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Bruce Wayne/Batman (Character) $330.2M 2016
0% 16% The Leisure Class Executive Producer - 2015
88% 87% Gone Girl Nick Dunne (Character) $167.8M 2014
8% 33% Runner Runner Ivan Block (Character) $19.3M 2013
47% 37% To the Wonder Neil (Character) $586.3K 2012
96% 90% Argo Tony Mendez (Character),
Director,
Producer
$136.0M 2012
68% 55% The Company Men Bobby Walker (Character) $4.4M 2010
92% 85% The Town Doug MacRay (Character),
Director,
Screenwriter
$92.2M 2010
No Score Yet 94% Reporter Executive Producer - 2009
62% 38% Extract Dean (Character) $10.8M 2009
84% 73% State of Play Stephen Collins (Character) $37.0M 2009
42% 59% He's Just Not That Into You Neil (Character) - 2009
94% 86% Gone Baby Gone Director,
Writer
$20.3M 2007
31% 62% Smokin' Aces Jack Dupree (Character) $35.6M 2007
38% 29% Man About Town Jack (Character) - 2006
56% 59% Feast Executive Producer - 2006
68% 48% Hollywoodland George Reeves (Character) $14.4M 2006
63% 84% Clerks II Gawking Guy (Character) $24.1M 2006
8% 30% Surviving Christmas Drew Latham (Character) $11.2M 2004
82% 70% Fahrenheit 9/11 Self $119.1M 2004
42% 48% Jersey Girl Ollie Trinke (Character) $25.3M 2004
27% 45% Paycheck Michael Jennings (Character) $53.8M 2003
39% 48% The Battle of Shaker Heights Executive Producer $279.3K 2003
6% 14% Gigli Gigli (Character) $5.7M 2003
43% 35% Daredevil Matt Murdock/Daredevil (Character) $102.5M 2003
33% 32% The Third Wheel Michael (Character),
Executive Producer
- 2002
59% 49% The Sum of All Fears Jack Ryan (Character) $118.5M 2002
78% 53% Changing Lanes Gavin Banek (Character) $66.8M 2002
36% 66% Stolen Summer Producer $119.8K 2002
86% 54% Daddy and Them Lawrence Bowen (Character) - 2001
52% 75% Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Holden/Ben/Chuckie (Character) $30.1M 2001
24% 66% Pearl Harbor Rafe McCawley (Character) $198.5M 2001
No Score Yet 63% Joseph: King of Dreams Joseph (Voice) - 2000
53% 33% Bounce Buddy Amaral (Character) $36.8M 2000
25% 27% Reindeer Games Rudy Duncan (Character) $23.4M 2000
66% 78% Boiler Room Jim Young (Character) $16.9M 2000
30% 59% 200 Cigarettes Bartender (Character) $6.9M 1999
68% 85% Dogma Bartleby/Barry (Character) $30.7M 1999
46% 34% Forces of Nature Ben Holmes (Character) $52.9M 1999
9% 28% Phantoms Sheriff Bryce Hammond (Character) $5.7M 1998
43% 73% Armageddon A.J. Frost (Character) $201.6M 1998
92% 80% Shakespeare in Love Ned Alleyn (Character) $100.2M 1998
97% 94% Good Will Hunting Chuckie Sullivan (Character),
Writer
$138.3M 1997
87% 83% Chasing Amy Holden McNeil (Character) $12.0M 1997
65% 25% Going All the Way Gunner Casselman (Character) $86.2K 1997
No Score Yet 43% Last Call Jack (Character) - 1996
58% 82% Mallrats Shannon Hamilton (Character) $1.8M 1995
93% 90% Dazed and Confused Fred O'Bannion (Character) $8.0M 1993
61% 69% School Ties Chesty Smith (Character) $12.5M 1992
No Score Yet 53% Daddy Ben Watson (Character) - 1991

TV

Credit
No Score Yet 28% The Drew Barrymore Show Guest 2023
No Score Yet 18% The Late Late Show With James Corden Guest 2023
No Score Yet 62% The Kelly Clarkson Show Guest 2020 2022-2023
No Score Yet 41% Jimmy Kimmel Live! Guest 2008-2010 2012-2013 2017 2019-2021 2023
88% 86% City on a Hill Executive Producer 2019 2021-2022
No Score Yet 44% The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Guest 2014 2016 2021
No Score Yet No Score Yet Variety Studio: Actors on Actors Guest 2021
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Ellen DeGeneres Show Guest 2016-2017 2019
No Score Yet 49% The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Guest 2017
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Graham Norton Show Guest 2016-2017
73% 86% Incorporated Executive Producer 2016-2017
56% 69% Any Given Wednesday With Bill Simmons Guest 2016
No Score Yet No Score Yet Conan Guest 2016
No Score Yet No Score Yet Vice Guide to Film Unknown (Character) 2016
88% No Score Yet Project Greenlight Self,
Executive Producer
2001-2003 2005 2015
No Score Yet No Score Yet Celebrated Self 2015
No Score Yet No Score Yet Finding Your Roots Guest 2014
No Score Yet No Score Yet Real Time With Bill Maher Guest 2014
No Score Yet No Score Yet The Daily Show Guest 2003 2006-2007 2009-2010 2014
No Score Yet No Score Yet Late Night With Jimmy Fallon Guest 2012-2013
No Score Yet 57% Saturday Night Live Host 2000 2004 2008 2013
50% No Score Yet Push, Nevada Executive Producer,
Writer
2002
77% No Score Yet Against the Grain Joe Willie Clemons (Character) 1993
70% No Score Yet The Torkelsons Unknown (Guest Star) 1993