Forget Hollywood couple goals, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are what friendship dreams are made of.
The Oscar winners have given power couples a run for their money ever since entering the industry together almost 40 years ago, just a few years after they met when they were only eight and ten years old.
A lot has changed since then, but much to fans’ delight, their friendship has never wavered. Take a look back at their friendship in photos below.
© GettyThey began auditioning together
In 1986, the two encouraged each other as they started to explore a potential acting career. “Before Matt, I was by myself. Acting was a solo activity where I’d just go off and do something, act in a little TV show or something, and no one understood it,” Ben told Parade in 2007.
“None of the other kids knew what it was I did, how it worked, or anything. All of a sudden I had this friend, Matt, and he gets it and wants to do it and thinks it’s interesting and wants to talk about it. Soon both of us are doing it.”
© GettyThey shared bank accounts
In the late 1980s, just as they were starting their acting careers, Ben and Matt also supported each other by sharing a bank account. “It was unusual, but we needed the money for auditions,” Matt said during an episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast in 2023. “As long as one of us had money, we knew that the power wasn’t going to get shut off.”
© GettyThey shared the screen on Field of Dreams
After their respective film debuts — Ben on 1981’s The Dark End of the Street and Matt on 1988’s Mystic Pizza — they shared the screen as uncredited extras on Kevin Costner’s 1989 sports movie.
© Getty1994-1997
True to them having started their acting careers together, Matt started writing their film Good Will Hunting in 1994 while studying at Harvard, which Ben then joined as both screenwriter and actor. The film ultimately won them their first Oscar, when Ben was 25 and Matt 27, when Good Will Hunting won for Best Original Screenplay.
© Getty Images2004
In 2004, they again shared the screen on Ben’s romantic comedy Jersey Girl, which featured his then-fiancée Jennifer Lopez, and Matt as an extra, PR Exec #2.
© WireImage2010
Ben married Jennifer Garner in 2005, and in 2010, the couple honored Matt during a presentation for him at the 24th Annual American Cinematheque Awards.
© Getty2017
For the 89th annual academy awards, they reunited on the Oscars stage once more to present that year’s Original Screenplay award, which they won 19 years prior.
© Getty2024
Ben and Matt stepped out with their respective wives, Jennifer Lopez and Luciana Barroso for the 81st Annual Golden Globe Awards. The year prior, Ben and Matt were celebrating their movie Air, the first movie they released under their production company Artists Equity.
© FilmMagic2025
The two most recently stepped out together for Netflix’s Tudum 2025: The Live Event, on May 31.
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