20 Highest Grossing Actors Worldwide

The days of a movie simply being able to slap a star's name on it and make guaranteed bank are largely over. There's still the odd movie star who'll draw in the crowds - Tom Cruise has been doing it for aeons - but what rules these days are franchises and IPs.

It's not just Hollywood studios who've realised this, but also the actors themselves. Increasingly, we've seen major actors sign up to big franchises not just for a single instalment, but the kind of long-running, multi-film deals that Marvel have made such good use of. And if you can land more than one franchise, then you're looking especially good.

So it is, then, that almost all of the highest grossing actors of all time have all been involved in some of the biggest franchises ever made, effectively turning the actor into a franchise themselves. Note: this list is based on worldwide box-office gross, unadjusted for inflation, and using the information provided by Box Office Mojo.