About the data
Top Billing shows, for every year from 1916 to 2025, the actor and the actress who earned the most, as far as the record allows. The record is uneven. For some years there are official lists of what every star was paid; for others there is only the biggest deal anyone wrote down.
Where the numbers come from
| Years | Source |
|---|---|
| 1916–1933 | Contract rates reported in the press and in biographies (weekly salaries, multi-film deals). Mostly estimates. |
| 1934–1947 | Salary lists the U.S. Treasury and the SEC made public, as reported by TIME and newspapers. Years without a detailed list repeat the nearest reported figure, marked as estimates. |
| 1948–1985 | No lists were published. We show the year's best-documented payday: a film fee, a percentage deal, a contract. |
| 1986–1998 | Forbes' Top 40 entertainers, which estimated two-year earnings from every source. We show half, per year. |
| 1999–2025 | Forbes' one-year estimates (Celebrity 100, then its actor and actress lists). From 2023, Forbes' figures before agents' fees. |
Of the 220 slots, 90 are reported yearly figures, 37 are documented deals, 91 are estimates and 2 have no reliable figure at all. Every year page cites its sources, and estimates are drawn with a dashed line.
“Top earner” means the money, not the movies
When the record counts all income, we keep the published No. 1, even when the money came from somewhere else: George Clooney's tequila in 2018, Dwayne Johnson's in 2021, Roseanne Barr's sitcom, Barbra Streisand's concert tour, Jane Fonda's workout videos. The year page says where it came from.
Scale and inflation
Paydays grew about a hundredfold, so the chart changes its scale at every decade, and again in 1986, when Forbes starts counting everything. The dashed line on the chart marks each change. “Today's $” puts every year on one scale, in 2025 dollars, using the U.S. consumer price index (CPI-U, annual average; 2025 averages the eleven months published).
Box office
Each year's three biggest films come from Wikipedia's “year in film” tables: U.S. rentals, the studios' share of ticket sales, until 1976; U.S. gross for 1977–1987; worldwide gross from 1988.
Images
Portraits and posters come from The Movie Database (TMDB). This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB. A portrait is not necessarily from the year shown.
Corrections
The early years especially are best effort. If you know a better source for a year, get in touch.