Ben Affleck is one of Hollywood’s brightest talents: he’s one of the best actors of his generation, and an Oscar winning director and screenwriter too. Is there anything Ben Affleck can’t do with his best movies?
One of the best Batman actors, who recently hung up his cape and retired from the superhero scene, combined two of those three talents for his 2012 movie Argo, in which he both directed and starred. Argo is one of the best movies of Affleck’s career, and it easily cemented itself among the best thriller movies of its decade.
Argo is set during the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis and follows an undercover attempt to rescue six US diplomats. In order to extract the hostages, the CIA created a fake science fiction movie and staged it being ‘filmed’ in Iran in order to explain US presence there. In fact, there was no movie, and instead CIA operatives were planning how to rescue the diplomats.
Argo has become one of the best movies based on a true story, and is a must-watch for fans of tense drama flicks. The proof for that is that Argo won the Oscar in 2013 for Best Picture: the most significant accolade that any movie can receive.
For Affleck, whose Hollywood status had stagnated throughout the 2000s, it was the most, “self-satisfying” moment of his career. Speaking about Argo’s Oscar win to Howard Stern, Affleck explained how it changed his whole trajectory.
“It was the most self-satisfying moment because for so long I just felt like I had to prove I belonged. I gotta’ show these people, tell these people: prove that I mean something, and that I’m worth something,” he said. “And years, 15 years, after Good Will Hunting and a lot of years in the shitter and a lot of fucking tabloids and bullshit. And I didn’t think we were going to win. It was much more meaningful [than Good Will Hunting’s Oscar win].”
Though he wasn’t nominated in the Best Director category (widely seen as a major snub) Argo’s Oscar win would go on the mark the start of Affleck’s resurgence. Since then, the actor has appeared in David Fincher’s Gone Girl, the DCU as Bruce Wayne/Batman, The Last Duel, and Air.
That’s not bad going, and it’s undoubtable that more hits from Affleck are set to follow in the coming years, and we’ll have more films to add to our list of the best Ben Affleck movies.
For more on the actor, check out our thoughts on why we think Affleck is one of the best Batman actors, and the one Affleck and Matt Damon movie we still think is underrated. If you want the lowdown on why Affleck quit as Batman, see how Matt Damon was the biggest reason behind Affleck’s decision.