Matt Damon's Terrifying Medical Thriller Is A Streaming Hit On HBO Max

When one thinks of occasional action hero and movie star Matt Damon, one doesn't picture him as the low-key epicenter of a high-stakes disaster drama about a viral pandemic. But Damon definitely appeared in such a film: the medical thriller "Contagion," which has taken off on HBO Max and sits just south of its top five, at No. 6 on the streamer's top 10 list, as of this writing.

Unlike other disaster movies based around plague-like illnesses, such as "Outbreak" or "The Cassandra Crossing," the Steven Soderbergh-directed "Contagion" takes a less action-based and more realistic approach as its cast reacts to and copes with the dangerous spread of a virus that passes from human to human via respiratory droplets and even inanimate objects. Parallels to SARS and COVID-19 are easy to note and deeply discomforting, seeing out this movie came out in 2011.

The film follows the illness from its origin point — a woman returning from a Hong Kong business trip — through its spread into a world-shaking calamity. It spends time with conspiracy theorists (Jude Law), dedicated doctors (Laurence Fishburne), and ordinary folks like Damon's Mitch Emhoff, who finds himself grappling with the death of his wife and son in a world gone mad. While a vaccine and a return to normality finally does arrive, neither its characters — or the viewer — will ever be the same.

While it might not be as well-remembered as its contemporaries these days, "Contagion" actually did solid business at the box office. It beat the book-based hit "The Help" to reach No. 1 in its opening weekend at the domestic box office with $23.1 million. It fared decently the following weekend against a re-release of "The Lion King," though it couldn't hold onto the top slot. It ended up with a final gross of more than $136 million worldwide, not bad for a bleak film with a $60 million budget.

The movie did well with critics, too — it's certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with an 85% approval score. Roger Ebert noted in his three-star review that while the behavior of the virus seems confusing and some of the film's sprawling cast could have been trimmed, he enjoyed the movie, ending his review on this pertinent note: "Yes, we must often wash our hands. Yes, 'hand sanitizers' are all over the place these days. Yes, shaking hands with strangers can be annoying — although they are no more likely to carry viruses than we are. Yes, there is really not much we can do."

The scientific community also had some words of praise for Steven Soderbergh's flick and its careful translation of science into cinematic reality. "Typically when movies take on science, they tend to sacrifice the science in favor of drama. That wasn't true here," vaccination expert Paul Offit said in a Medscape article. Quite a stamp of honor, and perhaps one reason why "Contagion" continues to spread its sobering, still-relevant message.