Hollywood’s pay structure has quietly flipped over the past few years. The actor at the very top of Forbes’ 2025 highest-paid list didn’t have a single box-office hit that year — he had a Netflix contract. Here’s the complete top 10, what each star actually earned, what they’re worth overall, and which specific film made them the most money.
How These Numbers Are Actually Calculated
These figures come from Forbes’ annual ranking, which estimates pre-tax earnings before agent, manager, and lawyer fees are deducted, covering the 2025 calendar year. According to Man of Many’s breakdown of the full methodology, the figures include upfront salaries, back-end profit participation, and streaming buyouts combined — and this year’s numbers reveal something genuinely significant: the top 20 actors’ combined earnings fell 20% to $590 million, the largest year-over-year drop in over a decade, as studios trim upfront pay in favor of performance-based deals.
1. Adam Sandler — $48 Million (2025 Earnings), ~$440 Million Net Worth
Sandler tops the list without a single 2025 box-office release to his name — a genuinely striking fact that says everything about how completely streaming economics have rewritten Hollywood pay. His long-running Netflix output deal pays him whether a film succeeds critically or not, and 2025 delivered Happy Gilmore 2, the long-awaited sequel that became one of Netflix’s most-watched films of the year, alongside a supporting, Golden Globe-nominated role in Jay Kelly opposite George Clooney. His highest-earning project of the year was Happy Gilmore 2 specifically, tied directly to his overall Netflix agreement rather than a single per-film paycheck.
2. Tom Cruise — $46 Million, ~$600 Million Net Worth
Cruise remains one of the last true theatrical movie stars, and he earns like one — his money comes from box-office performance, not a streaming safety net. His 2025 paycheck was driven by Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, where he took a reduced upfront fee in exchange for a backend deal tied directly to the film’s box-office gross. That’s the same structure that made Top Gun: Maverick his single most lucrative project in recent memory, reportedly paying him roughly $100 million once the film’s massive box-office run was factored into his profit share — still the high-water mark of his career earnings from any single film.
3. Mark Wahlberg — $44 Million, ~$400 Million Net Worth
Wahlberg’s position at number three genuinely surprised industry observers — social media reaction to the ranking included widespread confusion about how he out-earned bigger box-office names. According to The Independent’s coverage of the reaction, his earnings came from volume rather than one blockbuster: Apple TV’s The Family Plan 2, Prime Video’s Play Dirty (where his fee reportedly rose after Robert Downey Jr. exited the project), and Mel Gibson’s Flight Risk, combined with production credits and even continued royalties from his decades-old “Good Vibrations” song. Play Dirty was his single highest-paying project of the year.
4. Scarlett Johansson — $43 Million, ~$170 Million Net Worth
The highest-paid woman on the 2025 list, Johansson earned an estimated $20 million upfront just for headlining Jurassic World Rebirth, which went on to gross nearly $1 billion worldwide — making it comfortably her highest-earning project of the year once backend participation is included. She rounded out 2025 with her directorial debut on Eleanor the Great and a supporting role in Wes Anderson’s The Phoenician Scheme, but the Jurassic Park franchise relaunch is what actually moved her paycheck.
5. Brad Pitt — $41 Million, ~$400 Million Net Worth
Pitt’s 2025 earnings were supercharged by F1, Apple’s motor-racing blockbuster that he both starred in and produced — a dual role that let him take a genuine gross-participation slice of the film’s box-office take rather than just a flat salary. F1 cleared roughly $600 million worldwide and earned a Best Picture nomination at the 2026 Academy Awards, making it by far Pitt’s highest-earning and most critically recognized project of the year.
6. Denzel Washington — $38 Million, ~$280 Million Net Worth
Washington’s 2025 paycheck came primarily from a streaming deal tied to Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest, part of a broader pattern of veteran A-listers increasingly favoring streaming’s guaranteed fees over theatrical risk. At this stage of his career, Washington reportedly takes roles largely on his own terms, and Highest 2 Lowest represented his highest-paying project of the year specifically.
7. Jack Black — $28 Million, ~$50 Million Net Worth
Black’s 2025 was defined entirely by one film: A Minecraft Movie, the video-game adaptation that became a genuine global phenomenon and turned its cast into some of the year’s biggest per-project earners. It’s unambiguously his highest-earning project not just of the year, but very possibly of his career — few bets in recent memory have paid off as directly as this one did for its lead cast.
8. Jason Momoa — $28 Million, ~$45 Million Net Worth
Tied with Black, Momoa also cashed in directly on A Minecraft Movie’s runaway success, stacked on top of residual income still flowing from his Aquaman franchise years. Minecraft was his highest-earning project of 2025, though his Aquaman films remain his career-defining franchise financially over a longer horizon.
9. Daniel Craig — $27 Million, ~$160 Million Net Worth
Post-Bond, Craig has built a genuinely lucrative second act as detective Benoit Blanc in the Knives Out franchise. His Netflix deal for the sequels — including 2025’s Wake Up Dead Man — is what earned him his spot on this list, and it’s currently his highest-earning ongoing project, having successfully replaced 007 as his primary income-driving franchise.
10. Millie Bobby Brown — $26 Million, ~$16 Million Net Worth
At 22, Brown became the youngest actor on the Forbes list in two decades, according to AOL’s coverage of the full 2025 ranking. Her earnings come from her broader Netflix output deal spanning the Stranger Things finale era and films like The Electric State — making her overall Netflix relationship, rather than any single film, the actual source of her top-10 paycheck, and a clear signal that the platform is already investing heavily in its next generation of bankable stars.
