Ridley Scott Saves Matt Damon in the Sci-Fi Masterpiece Taking Over Prime Video

Published Jul 21, 2026, 7:30 PM EDT

Christopher Nolan’s*** The Odyssey*** just hit theaters and it’s already being called his magnum opus, with plenty of critics floating it as the best film of the year so far. A big part of that conversation is Matt Damon, who leads the film as Odysseus in what’s being praised as a career-defining performance. And whenever a Damon performance starts generating this kind of buzz, one particular film from his career always finds its way back into the spotlight. It’s widely regarded as one of his best movies, and once again, viewers are rediscovering what made it such a hit. And no, this time it isn’t one entry from his ***The Bourne ***films that made him say no to Avatar.

The film pulling focus is directed by Ridley Scott, the filmmaker behind Alien, Blade Runner, Black Hawk Down, and Gladiator, among plenty of other genre-defining hits. It’s also based on a novel by Andy Weir, the author whose work became one of this year’s other big novel-to-screen success stories with Project Hail Mary. Long before that adaptation hit theaters, though, Weir’s very first novel got the big screen treatment, and that film is the one suddenly climbing the charts again.

That film is The Martian, and more than a decade after its original theatrical release, it’s trending on streaming. The movie was just added to Prime Video this month, and according to FlixPatrol, it has already cracked the platform’s Top 10 in the United States. It ranked as the #10 most popular movie on the service yesterday and has since jumped up to sixth place.

Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. This is the universe your temperament, your survival instincts, and your particular brand of stubbornness were made for.

You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You’re a systems thinker who can’t help but notice the seams in things.

The wasteland doesn’t reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That’s you.

You’d survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely.

Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards.

The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

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<img width=“1400” height=“700” loading=“lazy” decoding=“async” alt=“Mark Watney wearing his spacesuit and kneeling on Mars’ dusty surface in The Martian” data-img-url=“https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/the-martian-matt-damon.jpg?q=49&fit=contain&w=1400&h=700&dpr=2” src=“https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/the-martian-matt-damon.jpg?q=49&fit=contain&w=1400&h=700&dpr=2” style=“width: 100%; height: 100%; object-fit: contain;” /><figcaption style=“display: none;“>Mark Watney wearing his spacesuit and kneeling on Mars’ dusty surface in The Martian</figcaption><small class=“body-img-caption”>Image via 20th Century Studios</small></figure></div></li><li class=“splide__slide gallery-main-img image-landscape”><div class=“body-img responsive-img”>

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<img width=“1400” height=“700” loading=“lazy” decoding=“async” alt=“Matt Damon as Mark Watney focusing with his helmet off in The Martian” data-img-url=“https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/the-martian-matt-damon-3.jpg?q=49&fit=contain&w=1400&h=700&dpr=2” src=“https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/the-martian-matt-damon-3.jpg?q=49&fit=contain&w=1400&h=700&dpr=2” style=“width: 100%; height: 100%; object-fit: contain;” /><figcaption style=“display: none;“>Matt Damon as Mark Watney focusing in The Martian</figcaption><small class=“body-img-caption”>Image via 20th Century Studios</small></figure></div></li></ul></div></section><section id=“expanded-gallery-thumbnails-1-296881517” class=“splide gallery-thumbnails-expanded” aria-label=“The carousel with thumbnails. Selecting a thumbnail will change the Beautiful Gallery carousel.”><div class=“splide__track”><ul class=“splide__list”><li class=“splide__slide gallery-thumbnail-img-expanded”>