Credit: Far Out / YouTube Still
Sat 17 October 2026 19:15, UK
It’s easy to forget how much of a legacy that Ben Affleck has in cinematic history if you really break it down.
Although Ben Affleck and Matt Damon began their careers together, they soon took different paths in Hollywood. Affleck initially gravitated towards more glamorous, high-profile roles, while Damon pursued a different direction, eventually working with acclaimed directors such as Steven Spielberg and Christopher Nolan. Their careers may have developed differently, but neither approach was necessarily better than the other.
Both men had Oscars before they were even in their 30s, and while that would have been enough for any other actor to not need to work another day in their lives, Affleck was still interested in learning where else he could go. Some of his more daring swings with Armageddon and Daredevil aren’t exactly peak cinema by any stretch, but when you look through some of the other films he was working on, there was so much room for him to explore new opportunities.
Anyone could have tried to make some of the biggest blockbusters of their career, and even if Affleck still tried his hand at doing that when playing Batman, the thought of him stepping behind the camera was something that no one saw coming when he started working on projects like The Town and Argo. Not all of them were big-budget films or anything, but they did serve to show a different side of what Affleck could do.
He knew the importance of what some of his films needed whenever he got behind the camera, but he also had more than his fair share of education working with some of the best in the business. His approach didn’t necessarily have to borrow from someone like Michael Bay or anything like that, but it turned out that he had a front-row seat for direction when he first started working on Gone Girl.
Because as much as David Fincher is a genius, there are some moments where he can be absolutely cutthroat in getting what he wants. He’s not above making actors do their scenes a thousand times to get the performance that he wants, because when you’re working on his movies, it’s always about learning the dialogue and the movements so well that they practically become part of your natural movements after a while.
And despite the director making some more risque movies in the past, Affleck felt that Fincher truly outdid himself on Se7en, saying, “I think Se7en is probably one of the great underrated masterpieces. I don’t think people include it sometimes on lists of great movies because it’s a serial killer. I think it’s one of the best constructed movies ever made. It’s iconic [and] amazing. Fincher, I think, is as good as anybody who’s ever done this job.”
Further reading: Cutting Room Floor
But the reason why that film works so well is because of what a subversion it is from the rest of the greatest films of all time. Although everyone goes into any film they watch expecting some sort of final resolution or happy ending, Fincher has no intention of giving that to you when you watch this film, and that more cynical outlook on life is actually a lot more refreshing than if you saw everyone walk off into the sunset all the time.
Affleck has done his fair share of great films over the years, but he knew there was never one correct way to make a movie, and it’s people like Fincher that keep things interesting for the rest of us. Because no matter how many times someone watches Se7en, there’s always going to be that lingering feeling in your stomach whenever you watch those final scenes play out.
