Top-earning actor
Steve McQueen
$2,000,000
Fee for PapillonDeal
About $14.5 million in 2025 dollars
$2 million and first billing over Dustin Hoffman.
New Hollywood · 1970s
1973
Top-earning actress
Barbra Streisand
≈ $1,000,000
Repeats her 1970 feeEstimate
About $7.3 million in 2025 dollars
The Way We Were became one of the biggest romances of the decade.
The pictures that paid
Box office champions of 1973
By U.S. theatrical rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales
- 1
The Exorcist
$88.5 million
- 2
The Sting
$79 million
- 3
American Graffiti
$55.9 million
Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.