Leonardo DiCaprio movies ranked by box office takings
Leonardo DiCaprio is one of Hollywood’s last movie stars, which is probably why Quentin Tarantino tapped him to play the role of a washed-up matinée idol in his ode to the industry’s fading Golden Age, Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood. He exudes a kind of old-school charisma that all too few stars have these days, and in an age where franchises draw the most loyalty, he is one of the only actors who can lure audiences to theatres through his name alone.
It’s been like this for decades. In fact, DiCaprio has been a star since his teens, having earned an Oscar nomination for his role as Johnny Depp’s developmentally disabled younger brother in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? when he was 19. He went on to secure his status as a teen heartthrob with Romeo + Juliet, and, of course, a little movie called Titanic.
Guessing which of DiCaprio’s movies are the highest-grossing is actually pretty challenging. The most remarkable thing about his career is that he has never been part of a franchise, a distinction that is practically unheard of in Hollywood in the 21st century. He doesn’t have Mission: Impossible or Top Gun like Tom Cruise. He doesn’t have the Bourne films like Matt Damon. He doesn’t even have the Ocean’s movies like Brad Pitt or The Equaliser series like Denzel Washington.
Believe it or not, DiCaprio has never actually starred in a sequel, let alone a franchise. That is, unless you count his first-ever movie credit, Critters 3. In a 2015 interview with Variety, The Wolf of Wall Street star explained, “To me, every movie that I’ve done has been its own piece of individual art.” While he didn’t completely rule out the possibility of making a sequel someday, he added, “You read a script, it’s got a beginning and an end. It’s hard to envision that being resurrected again. It just hasn’t happened.”
Sequels, prequels, and spinoffs tend to be the highest-grossing movies every year. Only one film out of the 13 highest-grossing movies of 2024 was not a sequel, and that one, Wicked, is arguably part of a franchise, given that its sequel was already shot before the first instalment was released. This makes DiCaprio’s success all the more impressive. He is the highest-grossing actor without a franchise, his films having earned $7.2billion worldwide as of 2019. At the top of the list of his highest-grossing movies is, not surprisingly, Titanic, James Cameron’s record-shattering romance that launched DiCaprio and his co-star, Kate Winslet, to eternal stardom.
Next comes Inception, Christopher Nolan’s mind-bending thriller that proved the director could storm the box office with an original story. Somewhat surprisingly, The Revenant comes in at number three Alejandro G Iñárritu’s hard-scrabble western is not for the faint of heart, nor is it the kind of rousing action movie that usually gets butts in seats. But it finally nabbed Leo the Oscar, even if it was probably granted to him out of pity for all that raw meat eating and the whole sleeping-in-a-carcass thing.
Three of the star’s collaborations with Martin Scorsese make the cut, as do the two movies he’s made with Tarantino. Steven Spielberg’s 2002 crime caper Catch Me if You Can also makes the list and features one of DiCaprio’s most winning and underrated performances.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s 10 highest-grossing movies:
- Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) – $2,223,048,786
- Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010) – $826,873,382
- The Revenant (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2015) – $532,938,302
- Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) – $449,841,566
- The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013) – $389,816,136
- Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019) – $377,426,903
- Catch Me if You Can (Steven Spielberg, 2002) – $355,612,291
- The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013) – $353,497,733
- Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese, 2010) – $299,461,782
- The Departed (Martin Scorsese, 2006) – $289,660,619
