This page of Top 100 Movie Stars comes from two lists. The first list is the American Film Institute’s Top 50 Classic Stars. The second list is our list of the Top 50 Current Stars. Current at least compared to the AFI list. There are 50 Actors and 50 Actresses Listed Here. Yes some great performers were left off…but overall we feel this is an outstanding Top 100.
- AFI’s Top 50 Stars – stars before 1950
- UMR’s Top 25 Actors – actors who became stars after 1950
- UMR’s Top 25 Actresses – actresses who became stars after 1950
Top 100 Movie Stars by Category
The really cool thing about this table is that it is “user-sortable”. Rank the movies any way you want.
- Sort Top 100 Movie Stars by the number of their movies in our database
- Sort Top 100 Movie Stars by career adjusted domestic box office grosses using current movie ticket cost.
- Sort Top 100 Movie Stars by career average critics and audience rating…all their movies combined
- Sort Top 100 Movie Stars by how many career Oscar® nominations and Oscar® wins their combined movies earned
- Sort Top 100 Movie Stars by their career average Ultimate Movie Ranking (UMR) Score. UMR Score puts box office, reviews and awards into a mathematical equation and gives each movie a score.
- The actor link takes you to our UMR page on that performer
Our Top 100 Stars Are Ranked By Using All The Stats In The Table – James Stewart is our “Best of the Best” while Sophia Loren is the “Worst of the Best”.
| Rank | Top 100 Star | Overall Rank | Movies | Total Adjusted Domestic Box Office | AVG Review % | Oscar Noms / Wins | AVG UMR Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| James Stewart | 1st | 76 | $10,571,600,000 | 70.3 % | 081 / 014 | 79.10 | |
| Cary Grant | 2nd | 65 | $9,373,000,000 | 72.6 % | 071 / 009 | 79.90 | |
| Gary Cooper | 3rd | 73 | $10,767,500,000 | 67.7 % | 101 / 018 | 79.50 | |
| Spencer Tracy | 4th | 62 | $9,606,156,000 | 68.4 % | 090 / 017 | 77.70 | |
| Tom Hanks | 5th | 50 | $8,355,000,000 | 68.8 % | 090 / 020 | 73.10 | |
| Gregory Peck | 6th | 53 | $7,875,800,000 | 67.2 % | 095 / 022 | 73.90 | |
| Humphrey Bogart | 7th | 70 | $8,624,000,000 | 69.8 % | 052 / 010 | 76.70 | |
| Fred Astaire | 8th | 39 | $5,850,000,000 | 69.7 % | 059 / 007 | 81.50 | |
| Clark Gable | 9th | 64 | $11,475,200,000 | 67.5 % | 047 / 017 | 82.70 | |
| Marlon Brando | 10th | 38 | $5,874,800,000 | 69.1 % | 092 / 023 | 72.60 | |
| Burt Lancaster | 11th | 69 | $7,010,400,000 | 69.5 % | 088 / 020 | 70.10 | |
| Harrison Ford | 12th | 52 | $11,996,400,000 | 67.0 % | 088 / 022 | 68.90 | |
| Judy Garland | 13th | 31 | $5,784,600,000 | 72.5 % | 039 / 006 | 87.60 | |
| Paul Newman | 14th | 60 | $7,512,000,000 | 66.7 % | 102 / 022 | 67.40 | |
| John Wayne | 15th | 94 | $12,154,200,000 | 64.5 % | 077 / 014 | 73.80 | |
| Olivia de Havilland | 16th | 48 | $7,483,200,000 | 65.4 % | 081 / 025 | 74.50 | |
| Ingrid Bergman | 17th | 32 | $4,899,200,000 | 72.3 % | 066 / 013 | 74.00 | |
| Clint Eastwood | 18th | 65 | $7,065,500,000 | 69.5 % | 049 / 013 | 74.30 | |
| Jack Nicholson | 19th | 51 | $5,599,800,000 | 69.9 % | 097 / 022 | 66.30 | |
| Leonardo DiCaprio | 20th | 26 | $3,842,800,000 | 71.1 % | 095 / 031 | 73.30 | |
| Tom Cruise | 21st | 42 | $7,047,600,000 | 66.7 % | 055 / 009 | 78.40 | |
| Robert Redford | 22nd | 47 | $7,256,800,000 | 67.6 % | 070 / 027 | 70.00 | |
| Daniel Day-Lewis | 23rd | 17 | $1,052,300,000 | 80.2 % | 082 / 021 | 78.10 | |
| Meryl Streep | 24th | 59 | $4,489,900,000 | 69.5 % | 119 / 028 | 67.30 | |
| Katharine Hepburn | 25th | 43 | $5,314,800,000 | 69.0 % | 063 / 014 | 71.30 | |
| Cate Blanchett | 26th | 47 | $4,577,800,000 | 69.9 % | 094 / 029 | 61.80 | |
| Dustin Hoffman | 27th | 55 | $7,067,500,000 | 66.5 % | 088 / 023 | 63.70 | |
| William Holden | 28th | 66 | $7,510,800,000 | 64.6 % | 088 / 028 | 66.60 | |
| Jack Lemmon | 29th | 53 | $5,225,800,000 | 67.9 % | 073 / 015 | 69.70 | |
| Brad Pitt | 30th | 45 | $4,315,500,000 | 68.3 % | 076 / 013 | 71.70 | |
| James Cagney | 31st | 61 | $6,801,500,000 | 66.8 % | 046 / 008 | 75.30 | |
| Myrna Loy | 32nd | 74 | $9,057,600,000 | 65.3 % | 041 / 013 | 73.40 | |
| Marlene Dietrich | 33rd | 32 | $3,952,000,000 | 70.1 % | 043 / 008 | 77.00 | |
| Gene Hackman | 34th | 76 | $7,083,200,000 | 65.7 % | 092 / 017 | 57.50 | |
| Deborah Kerr | 35th | 39 | $4,543,500,000 | 67.0 % | 071 / 022 | 71.10 | |
| Irene Dunne | 36th | 31 | $4,067,200,000 | 67.9 % | 042 / 007 | 79.40 | |
| Vivien Leigh | 37th | 15 | $3,196,500,000 | 71.6 % | 041 / 015 | 78.00 | |
| Claudette Colbert | 38th | 48 | $6,273,600,000 | 66.4 % | 041 / 008 | 74.60 | |
| Bette Davis | 39th | 79 | $6,351,600,000 | 65.2 % | 084 / 014 | 65.00 | |
| Henry Fonda | 40th | 83 | $8,690,100,000 | 64.2 % | 058 / 013 | 66.60 | |
| Grace Kelly | 41st | 11 | $2,338,600,000 | 77.2 % | 028 / 008 | 89.50 | |
| Audrey Hepburn | 42nd | 25 | $2,862,500,000 | 71.9 % | 058 / 015 | 69.50 | |
| Shirley Temple | 43rd | 37 | $5,072,700,000 | 67.6 % | 013 / 002 | 80.00 | |
| Charles Chaplin | 44th | 13 | $2,860,000,000 | 81.9 % | 007 / 001 | 83.00 | |
| James Dean | 45th | 3 | $930,300,000 | 85.5 % | 017 / 002 | 98.70 | |
| Edward G. Robinson | 46th | 72 | $7,365,600,000 | 66.6 % | 033 / 002 | 68.70 | |
| Gene Kelly | 47th | 40 | $5,140,000,000 | 64.8 % | 052 / 013 | 72.30 | |
| Ginger Rogers | 48th | 55 | $6,644,000,000 | 64.7 % | 039 / 003 | 72.30 | |
| Marilyn Monroe | 49th | 25 | $3,217,500,000 | 70.8 % | 030 / 007 | 73.40 | |
| Greta Garbo | 50th | 24 | $2,217,600,000 | 71.9 % | 014 / 001 | 80.00 | |
| Laurence Olivier | 51st | 49 | $3,856,300,000 | 67.2 % | 073 / 017 | 64.50 | |
| Doris Day | 52nd | 39 | $4,945,200,000 | 65.2 % | 029 / 004 | 78.20 | |
| Steve McQueen | 53rd | 26 | $3,400,800,000 | 69.7 % | 030 / 005 | 71.80 | |
| Robert DeNiro | 54th | 95 | $5,937,500,000 | 62.2 % | 099 / 019 | 51.50 | |
| Denzel Washington | 55th | 47 | $3,886,900,000 | 68.2 % | 035 / 007 | 71.10 | |
| Jean Harlow | 56th | 22 | $2,844,600,000 | 69.7 % | 004 / 000 | 80.20 | |
| Barbara Stanwyck | 57th | 81 | $7,484,400,000 | 64.8 % | 029 / 001 | 67.40 | |
| Elizabeth Taylor | 58th | 48 | $6,840,000,000 | 58.4 % | 076 / 023 | 61.20 | |
| Al Pacino | 59th | 46 | $4,117,000,000 | 65.6 % | 078 / 016 | 59.70 | |
| Morgan Freeman | 60th | 70 | $7,028,000,000 | 62.3 % | 061 / 018 | 58.00 | |
| Mary Pickford | 61st | 33 | $4,596,900,000 | 65.8 % | 001 / 001 | 79.70 | |
| Julie Andrews | 62nd | 28 | $5,862,920,000 | 64.7 % | 064 / 012 | 69.18 | |
| Barbra Streisand | 63rd | 19 | $4,005,200,000 | 59.1 % | 044 / 008 | 78.00 | |
| Michael Caine | 64th | 100 | $6,500,000,000 | 62.3 % | 072 / 013 | 48.80 | |
| Kirk Douglas | 65th | 71 | $5,580,600,000 | 64.1 % | 048 / 015 | 59.70 | |
| Lillian Gish | 66th | 31 | $3,865,700,000 | 68.6 % | 006 / 001 | 69.60 | |
| Robert Mitchum | 67th | 85 | $7,335,500,000 | 62.1 % | 037 / 006 | 58.50 | |
| Mel Gibson | 68th | 44 | $5,253,600,000 | 63.8 % | 038 / 011 | 66.20 | |
| Julie Christie | 69th | 34 | $3,002,200,000 | 67.8 % | 054 / 012 | 58.20 | |
| Natalie Wood | 70th | 44 | $4,822,400,000 | 61.7 % | 051 / 015 | 66.00 | |
| Shirley MacLaine | 71st | 51 | $4,411,500,000 | 61.1 % | 075 / 017 | 57.60 | |
| Sidney Poitier | 72nd | 46 | $4,140,000,000 | 63.6 % | 054 / 012 | 62.40 | |
| Diane Keaton | 73rd | 48 | $4,387,200,000 | 63.6 % | 067 / 017 | 54.80 | |
| Robin Williams | 74th | 66 | $6,923,400,000 | 57.1% | 056 / 010 | 54.59 | |
| Anne Bancroft | 75th | 50 | $3,495.000000 | 63.9% | 044 / 003 | 55.50 | |
| Sean Connery | 76th | 57 | $6,857,100,000 | 62.8 % | 034 / 007 | 57.00 | |
| Sally Field | 77th | 33 | $4,669,500,000 | 61.0 % | 046 / 013 | 63.30 | |
| Jane Fonda | 78th | 45 | $3,978,000,000 | 62.2 % | 063 / 013 | 58.80 | |
| Rita Hayworth | 79th | 35 | $3,790,500,000 | 64.0 % | 035 / 005 | 69.20 | |
| Lauren Bacall | 80th | 36 | $3,272,400,000 | 68.0 % | 018 / 005 | 62.60 | |
| Richard Burton | 81st | 47 | $4,032,600,000 | 61.0 % | 073 / 018 | 53.80 | |
| Joan Crawford | 82nd | 78 | $6,762,600,000 | 58.8 % | 032 / 003 | 60.50 | |
| Peter O'Toole | 83rd | 37 | $2,834,200,000 | 66.0 % | 054 / 021 | 57.30 | |
| Will Smith | 84th | 32 | $5,574,400,000 | 58.4 % | 012 / 003 | 69.50 | |
| Marx Brothers | 85th | 18 | $1,704,600,000 | 68.0 % | 001 / 000 | 67.70 | |
| Kate Winslet | 86th | 36 | $2,354,400,000 | 66.0 % | 054 / 016 | 52.10 | |
| Ava Gardner | 87th | 42 | $4,569,600,000 | 60.3 % | 030 / 003 | 61.70 | |
| Buster Keaton | 88th | 29 | $664,888,000 | 66.6% | 003 / 002 | 64.60 | |
| Orson Welles | 89th | 56 | $3,382,400,000 | 66.0 % | 034 / 009 | 50.50 | |
| Jodie Foster | 90th | 40 | $2,568,000,000 | 66.7 % | 027 / 007 | 59.00 | |
| Carole Lombard | 91st | 39 | $3,279,900,000 | 63.4 % | 008 / 000 | 68.30 | |
| Julia Roberts | 92nd | 46 | $4,926,600,000 | 58.1 % | 022 / 001 | 60.50 | |
| Faye Dunaway | 93rd | 43 | $3,186,300,000 | 60.3 % | 049 / 011 | 44.90 | |
| Susan Sarandon | 94th | 76 | $3,724,000,000 | 62.1 % | 034 / 002 | 47.00 | |
| Sandra Bullock | 95th | 37 | $3,977,500,000 | 54.2 % | 025 / 014 | 54.80 | |
| Mae West | 96th | 12 | $1,515,600,000 | 60.4 % | 002 / 000 | 67.60 | |
| Charlize Theron | 97th | 44 | $2,455,200,000 | 59.8 % | 029 / 010 | 48.30 | |
| Goldie Hawn | 98th | 30 | $2,649,000,000 | 57.1 % | 016 / 004 | 57.80 | |
| Angelina Jolie | 99th | 35 | $3,178,000,000 | 56.2 % | 016 / 001 | 53.10 | |
| Sophia Loren | 100th | 35 | $2,261,000,000 | 58.4 % | 018 / 001 | 51.20 |
So what do you think of our rankings? Look good? Think we are crazy? Left somebody out? Look forward to some feedback.
Want more stats? The following link takes you to a page that ranks over 500 Movie Stars…..because more people were involved in the database…the rankings are different. Ranking 564 Movie Stars.
Academy Award® and Oscar® are the registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Arts and Sciences.
(Visited 1 times)
1 Thanks for your continuing interest. I am sure that if you or I had been writing that book we would have had many different people in our 100. However from what I know of those who HAVE been selected there are at least no daft choices such as that Elizabeth Hurley one.
2 Bruce has had a couple of reservations but I should maybe have explained before that the authors placed everyone in strict alphabetical order regardless of activity and I split them into lists because I did not want any one post to become too convoluted and I also wanted to highlight the movie stars, so you are quite right that I should probably have included Elvis in the musicians list though he did have a substantial movie career and has a Cogerson page.
3 Michael J Fox may have been in the book for his medical condition and the Michael J Fox Foundation for research into Parkinson’s disease. No doubt there were other celebs whose death a US President publicly regretted but those of Brando and brave, tragic CHRISTOPHER REEVE are the only two that I can personally recall and in the cinema apart from the Superman movies the only thing that likeable Chris might be remembered for is giving Sir Maurice Micklewhite his first screen kiss from a male in Deathtrap (1982)!
4 Anyway if you were to approach the authors of my book about why say Cooper wasn’t included or I was to demand to know about the exclusion of Carmen Miranda they would probably tell us “He/she was No 101 !” That’s how Steve often fobs me off when I pull him about leaving a classic movie out of his video Top 30. Bruce unfortunately just circles the wagons and sits me out! Oops I nearly spilt my coffee !
Hoho that last paragraph made me laugh Bob. 🙂
Icons? Let’s see there’s – Bogart, Monroe, James Dean and Elvis.
Did I leave any out? 😉
I’m not a James Dean fan and IMO he wouldn’t have become a ‘legend’ or an icon if he hadn’t died so young, but the 4 famous people I listed are the ones ‘usually’ bandied about as the most iconic and I’m pretty sure they’ve sold more wall posters to the average Joe in the past couple of decades than anyone else out there. If we go by sales of wall posters than Bruce Lee would be up there too.
Movie posters for Mr. Average? Casablanca, Star Wars and Scarface (1983) and that’s about it.
GOOD MORNING STEVE
1 It would be a brave person who would argue with you about the volume of posters sold and just like movie grosses and billing they are certainly one valid way of gauging status.
2 However if we go only on posters sales all kind of people would be excluded from being regarded as icons. For example I have seen few posters in The Donald locker rooms of Mother Teresa, Salvadore Dali or Albert Einstein. Also Lord Olivier was never a pin up boy and didn’t need to be one whereas for ME at least that’s ALL the likes of Monroe and Dean were the first being an artificial repetitive bore in her movies and the second being, well, just a bore. Bogie was the real deal and Elvis had it all – he was photogenic, had an appealing voice and could make entertaining albeit lightweight movies
3 Talking of Elvis at a recent auction two Andy Warhol portraits of Elvis and another actor
sold for over £96 million, £55 million for the Elvis one and £44 million for the second one; and it s reported that McQueen Memorabilia has at various stages outsold that of Elvis. Where does all that come into the equation?
4 However as I explained earlier my Xmas present book does not define an icon as someone who is simply popular but as “the first, the best or simply the most memorable in their field,” Each icon is given an individual chapter which explains in detail why that person has been selected. As I have said before the book lists them all alphabetically and doesn’t attempt to rank them – how do you rank Marie Curie in a list with Sinatra? – but the authors do suggest that if they were to select one icon as The Greatest it would be Mickey Mouse!
5 In summary whilst I think that Bruce’s fellow teachers greatly undervalue the importance of movies to both historic and contemporary culture we movie buffs must remember that it is not just in the fields of music, sport or films that greatness can be achieved. One can only wonder about how many pictures of Gable Mother Teresa had on her walls and how those that she helped would rank her alongside the King of either MGM or rock n roll.
“ICON: A person or thing regarded a s a representative symbol or worthy of veneration”
Thanks again for the added clarification on Icons, though for our purposes centering on ‘celebrity icons in popular culture’ which leaves out the likes of Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa.
I was trying to reduce the number of ‘celebrity icons in popular culture’ to their barest minimum, which is why I picked Bogart, Monroe, Dean and Elvis. There are many other icons of course, as you have listed in previous posts. And I also equate the most iconic celebrities with memorabilia sold to the average guy on the street who might not be as interested in Judy Garland or Liz Taylor as much as in Marilyn Monroe. In my book you’re not much of a movie icon if only a handful of devoted film buffs are interested in you and the general public simply don’t care. (My two pennies worth)
Btw Bruce, it might be just me but clicking on a comment link is misdirecting to earlier pages and not to the latest page of comments.
CogersonJust on Dan Patch. His picture hung on the walls of most barbershops and bars back in Wisconsin when I was young. And I read here and there about him. Last night I did some
internet research and was frankly surprised at just how big a celebrity he was.
Dan Patch had an owner, Marion Savage, who seems to have been a publicity genius.
Dan Patch made over $1 million a year at a time when the highest paid major league ballplayer made $12,000. He made a lot on purses, with Savage also arranging a cut of the gross at the huge gates he drew, plus there were the endorsements. His line of products included snuff, smoking tobacco, cut plug chewing tobacco, cigars, children toys, watches, washing machines, gasoline engines, livestock feeds, sleds, locks, thermometers, sarsaparilla, and even a Dan Patch automobile, which sold well before Ford took over the market.
This whole thing is amazing to me. He was probably the top American pop culture icon of the first decade of the 20th century, drawing crowds of up to 93,000 when the top world series crowd barely broke 30,000.
Here is a quote on how he was “sold”
“advance men plastered posters on fences, walls, and billboards, put pictures and stories in every newspaper and farm journal within 300 miles of an appearance, and even distributed articles supposedly authored by the great horse himself.”
Don’t be too harsh on ol’ Dan. He was not the first nor the last celebrity to need a ghost writer.
Hey John…thanks for the information on Dan Patch. Your comment has me thinking I need to do some of my own research on Mr. Patch. 93,000 is a pretty impressive total…especially for back then. Sounds like the Babe Ruth of horses….lol. Those numbers make me think Virginia’s own Secretariat was the next Dan Patch and we did not know it. Good stuff.
Hey Bob….interesting list. Peter Jackson seems like an unusual choice. Makes the list for three movies? Yes I am ignoring his Hobbit movies. Thanks for sharing the information.
MUSICAL ICONS
FEMALE
Mariah Carey
Cher
Dolly Parton
Edith Piaf
Diana Ross
Tina Turner
The Spice Girls
Aretha Franklin
Madonna
Kylie Minogue
MALE
Louis Armstrong
The Beatles
The Bee Gees
David Bowie
Jim Brown
Eric Clapton
Kurt Corbain
Bob Dylan
Luciano Pavarotti
Pink Floyd
The Rolling Stones
U2
Stevie Wonder
Marvin Gaye
Jimi Hendrix
Michael Jackson
Sir Elton John
Led Zeppelin
Bob Marley
Freddie Mercury
George Michael
Jim Morrison
Bruce Springsteen
Hey Bob….not a huge music person….but this list seems pretty good. Thanks for the information.
GENERAL ICONS
Coco Chanel
Marie Curie
Salvador Dali
Princess Diana
Albert Einstein
Mahatma Gandi
Bill Gates
Che Guvara
Stephen Hawking
Sir Edmund Hillary
JFK
Martin Luther King
Barak Obama
Jacqueline Onassis
Pablo Picasso
Mother Teresa
Andy Warhol
SPORTS ICONS
Muhammad Ali
Boris Becker
David Beckham
Don Bradman
Michael Jordan
Pele
Michael Schumacher
Shane Warne
Tiger Woods
TECHNICAL/TV ICONS
Sir David Attenborough
Pedro Almodovar
Walt Disney
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Peter Jackson
Marcel Marceau – did films but more Mime specialist
Mickey Mouse
Harry Potter/J K Rowling
I Love Lucy/Lucille Ball
The Simpsons
Steven Spielberg
Howard Stern
Quentin Tarentino
Bob
Thanks for the lists. It is interesting to see their choices.
And good news. I will refrain from any comment unless you ask me.