Robert Downey Jr., Will Smith, Tom Cruise and More Top Highest-Paid Actors of 2015 List

It should hardly come as a surprise that guys like Robert Downey Jr., Will Smith and Tom Cruise are among the highest-paid actors in the world. For his part, Downey Jr. is one of the biggest stars in the biggest movie franchise, while Cruise churns out one blockbuster after another, and the very presence of Smith commands huge box office returns. Predictability aside, there are some surprises on this year’s list of the highest-paid actors in the world.

Forbes released their annual ranking of the highest-paid actors in the world, with a separate list for women to be released soon. It’s kind of a bummer that Forbes separates the lists by gender, but given that women continue to make less than men in almost every career field, it’s sadly safe to assume that hardly any women would have made the list if Forbes had included both women and men.

At any rate, the list contains a lot of expected names, from Tom Cruise to Dwayne Johnson, though it is surprising that Chris Pratt and Brad Pitt ranked so low — even more surprising that Adam Sandler outranked Tom Cruise by $1 million. How do we allow this to happen? Meanwhile, it’s interesting to note that Will Smith is so high on the list; aside from the Men in Black films, Smith doesn’t star in sequels or franchises like many of the other actors on this list.

Here’s the complete list, which also includes some very high paid Indian actors thanks to the country’s lucrative Bollywood movie business:

1. Robert Downey, Jr. $80 million
2. Jackie Chan $50 million
3. Vin Diesel $47 million
4. Bradley Cooper $41.5 million
5. Adam Sandler $41 million
6. Tom Cruise $40 million
7. Amitabh Bachchan $33.5 million
7. Salman Khan $33.5 million
9. Akshay Kumar $32.5 million
10. Mark Wahlberg $32 million
11. Dwayne Johnson $31.5 million
12. Johnny Depp $30 million
13. Leonardo Dicaprio $29 million
14. Channing Tatum $29 million
15. Chris Hemsworth $27 million
15. Daniel Craig $27 million
17. Matthew McConaughey $26.5 million
18. Shah Rukh Khan $26 million
18. Will Smith $26 million
20. Matt Damon $25 million
21. Hugh Jackman $23 million
22. Ben Affleck $19.5 million
22. Liam Neeson $19.5 million
24. Chow Yun-fat $18 million
24. Russell Crowe $18 million
26. Seth Rogen $17 million
27. George Clooney $16.5 million
28. Brad Pitt $16 million
28. Jonah Hill $16 million
30. Will Ferrell $15 million
30. Ranbir Kapoor $15 million
32. Chris Evans $13.5 million
33. Chris Pratt $13 million
33. Andy Lau $13 million

Also of note: comedic veteran Will Ferrell now ranks lower than both Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill, while all three command more money than Chris Pratt and Chris Evans. We’ll probably see Pratt move pretty far up the list in the next year or two.