TopBillingHollywood's highest-paid actor and actress, every year since 1916About the data

Forbes Starts Counting · 1980s

1989

Eddie Murphy

Top-earning actor

Eddie Murphy

$28,500,000

Forbes, $57M over 1988–89 (half shown)Reported

About $74 million in 2025 dollars

The top actor on the list, behind Michael Jackson, Steven Spielberg, Bill Cosby and Mike Tyson.

The pictures that paid

Meryl Streep

Top-earning actress

Meryl Streep

≈ $4,000,000

About $4 million a filmEstimate

About $10.4 million in 2025 dollars

Again no actress on the Forbes list; the only women were Oprah Winfrey and Madonna.

The pictures that paid

Box office champions of 1989

By worldwide box-office gross

  1. 1

    Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

    $474 million

  2. 2

    Batman

    $412 million

  3. 3

    Back to the Future Part II

    $333 million

Neither top earner was in one of the year's three biggest films.

Sources