- - Zoe Saldaña Is Officially the Highest-Grossing Actor of All Time After “Avatar: Fire and Ash”

Tommy McArdleJanuary 14, 2026 at 12:44 AM

0

Jesse Grant/Getty; 20th Century Studios

Zoe Saldaña; Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri in AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH -

Zoe Saldaña has surpassed Scarlett Johansson as the world's highest-grossing actor of all time

Saldaña's leading role in the latest Avatar movie propelled her to the top spot, less than a year after she also took home her first Academy Award for her performance in Emilia Pérez

Saldaña is expected to continue playing her Avatar role as Neytiri in the franchise's planned fourth and fifth movies

Nearly one month after Avatar: Fire and Ash's release, Zoe Saldaña is now the highest-grossing actor of all time at the global box office.

Saldaña, 47, has taken over as the world's highest-grossing actor with a combined estimated box office gross of more than $15.4 billion, according to the box office website The Numbers' most list.

As Variety noted on Tuesday, Jan. 13, she has starred in the three highest-grossing movies ever: 2009's Avatar, its 2022 sequel The Way of Water and 2019's Avengers: Endgame. Fire and Ash, which hit theaters on Dec. 19, is currently the 29th highest-grossing movie of all time, according to Box Office Mojo; it crossed the $1 billion mark at the global box office on Jan. 3.

According to that outlet, Saldaña is also the first actress to appear in four movies that have made more than $2 billion globally; that list adds 2018's Avengers: Infinity War to the three prior movies.

Saldaña leapfrogged her Avengers costar Scarlett Johansson to take the top spot on the list. Johansson, 41, previously claimed the title as the world's highest-grossing movie actor from Samuel L. Jackson — another Marvel Cinematic Universe costar — in July after her 2025 movie Jurassic World Rebirth saw significant success at the box office.

Courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri in Avatar: Fire and Ash

Jackson, 77, now stands out at third on The Numbers' list of the highest-grossing stars, with Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Pratt rounding out the top five.

Saldaña's newfound place atop that list comes less than a year after she also won Best Supporting Actress at the 2025 Oscars for her role in 2024's Emilia Pérez. She received significant critical and industry-wide acclaim for her performance in that movie and also won awards at last year's Golden Globe Awards, Critics Choice Awards, BAFTA Awards and SAG Awards. Aside from her Oscar win and her return to Pandora as the Na'vi character Neytiri in Fire and Ash, Saldaña also voiced a character in Pixar's 2025 movie Elio.

— sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

20th Century Studios

Zoe Saldaña as Neytiri and Sam Worthington as Jake Sully in Avatar: Fire and Ash

Saldaña is expected to continue to reprise her role in the Avatar franchise as Neytiri in the in-the-works fourth and fifth entries in the franchise, which are currently planned for release in 2029 and 2031, respectively. (As of December 2023, franchise creator and director Cameron told PEOPLE in an interview that the production had already filmed "part of movie four" before breaking for a time jump that he said will take place during that movie.)

In December, Deadline reported that Saldaña and Matthew McConaughey were in negotiations to star in an upcoming Netflix movie titled Positano, which the outlet described as "a romantic caper set in the Italian town the film is named after."

Avatar: Fire and Ash is in theaters now.

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”