“Most successful” means different things depending on what you count. The actress with the most Oscars isn’t the one whose films made the most money. The one whose films made the most money has one Oscar. The one with the most nominations has fewer wins than a woman who retired in 1981.
20 Most Successful Actresses of All Time
So this ranking weighs four things: total box office, Academy Award wins and nominations, career longevity and volume, and industry records that changed what was possible for the women who came after.
A note on scope: this list covers Hollywood careers, which is where the search demand sits, but it means extraordinary actresses from other film industries aren’t represented. That’s a limitation of the frame, not a judgment.
1. Meryl Streep
21 Academy Award nominations the record for any performer, male or female. Three wins.
Nobody is close. The next most-nominated performers, Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson, have 12 each. Streep has 17 nominations in Best Actress alone, plus four in Best Supporting Actress.
LONDON, ENGLAND – OCTOBER 03: Meryl Streep attends the Clooney Foundation For Justice’s The Albies at The Natural History Museum on October 03, 2025 in London, England. (Photo by Mike Marsland/WireImage)
She won Best Supporting Actress for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), then Best Actress for Sophie’s Choice (1982) and The Iron Lady (2011). Her first feature was Julia in 1977. Her most recent nomination came for The Post in 2018.
The case for the top spot isn’t the win count Hepburn beats her there. It’s that Streep sustained Academy-level work across five decades, in comedy and drama, in accents ranging from Polish to Danish to British, while remaining commercially viable in films like Mamma Mia! and The Devil Wears Prada. No other actress has done both for that long.
2. Katharine Hepburn
Four Best Actress Oscars the most acting wins by any performer in history.
Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). All twelve of her nominations were for lead performances; she was never nominated in a supporting category.
1938: American actress Katharine Hepburn (1907 – 2003) relaxes with her hands behind her head. (Photo by Ernest Bachrach/John Kobal Foundation/Getty Images)
The span is what makes it remarkable. Forty-eight years between her first win and her last. She held the record for most acting nominations for decades, until Streep passed her in 2003.
She never attended a ceremony to accept any of them.
3. Zoe Saldaña
Highest-grossing actor of all time $15.72 billion worldwide.
Saldaña leads every performer of any gender in cumulative box office, according to The Numbers’ leading-role rankings. She took the top spot in January 2026 after Avatar: Fire and Ash.
zoe saldana highest grossing actor
The achievement is franchise selection at an almost improbable rate: Neytiri in Avatar, Gamora in the Marvel films, and Uhura in the rebooted Star Trek. She is the only performer to appear in all three of the highest-grossing films ever made, and the first woman with four films that each crossed $2 billion.
She also won Best Supporting Actress for Emilia Pérez, becoming the first Dominican American to win an Academy Award, and was named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in 2026.
4. Scarlett Johansson
$15.40 billion worldwide second only to Saldaña.
Nine Marvel films as Natasha Romanoff, including four Avengers entries, plus Black Widow. Outside Marvel she has The Jungle Book, the Sing films, Lucy, and Jurassic World Rebirth.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 23: Scarlett Johansson attends the “Jurassic World Rebirth” New York Premiere at Lincoln Center on June 23, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)
What separates her from other franchise actresses is that she built a parallel career the box office numbers don’t capture Lost in Translation, Under the Skin, Marriage Story, Jojo Rabbit. She was nominated in both lead and supporting categories in the same year, which almost nobody manages.
5. Bette Davis
Eleven Oscar nominations, two wins, and the first woman to serve as president of the Academy.
She won Best Actress for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). More significant is what she did off screen: Davis sued Warner Bros. in 1936 over the studio contract system. She lost, but the fight helped weaken a structure that gave actors almost no control over their own careers.
Portrait of Bette Davis Lounging
She worked into her eighties, took roles that other leading actresses of her era refused, and was nominated for the last time at 54 in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
6. Elizabeth Taylor
Two Best Actress wins and the first actress to command $1 million for a single film.
BUtterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). The million-dollar fee for Cleopatra is widely reported as the moment the ceiling moved for every actress who followed.
British-born American actress Elizabeth Taylor (1932 – 2011), circa 1955. (Photo by Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)
Her later work as an AIDS activist and fundraiser, beginning in the mid-1980s when the cause carried real professional risk, arguably outlasts the filmography in significance.
7. Frances McDormand
Three Best Actress wins more than anyone except Hepburn plus a producing Oscar.
Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020). For Nomadland she also won Best Picture as a producer, making her the first person to win Best Actress and Best Picture for the same film.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 25: (EDITORIAL USE ONLY) In this handout photo provided by A.M.P.A.S., Frances McDormand accepts the Oscar for Actress in a Leading Role for “Nomadland” the 93rd Annual Academy Awards at Union Station on April 25, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Todd Wawrychuk/A.M.P.A.S. via Getty Images)
She has done it while consistently avoiding the machinery few franchise roles, minimal publicity work, and a filmography built almost entirely on character parts.
8. Cate Blanchett
Two Oscars, eight nominations, and the only actress to win one for playing another actress on this list.
She won Best Supporting Actress for The Aviator (2004), playing Katharine Hepburn, and Best Actress for Blue Jasmine (2013).
Blanchett also occupies the rare position of moving freely between blockbusters and difficult art films The Lord of the Rings, Thor: Ragnarok, and Ocean’s 8 on one side, Carol, Tár, and I’m Not There on the other.
9. Ingrid Bergman
Three acting Oscars across three decades.
Best Actress for Gaslight (1944) and Anastasia (1956), Best Supporting Actress for Murder on the Orient Express (1974).
The middle win matters most. Bergman was effectively exiled from Hollywood after a personal scandal in 1950 and spent years working in Europe. Anastasia was the industry publicly readmitting her. Very few careers survive that kind of break, and fewer come back to win.
10. Julia Roberts
The actress who proved a woman could open a film on her name alone in the modern era.
She won Best Actress for Erin Brockovich (2000), the film for which she was widely reported as the first actress paid $20 million.
Between Pretty Woman in 1990 and Erin Brockovich a decade later, Roberts was the most bankable star in Hollywood of either gender for stretches a position no actress had reliably held since the studio era.
11. Jane Fonda
Two Best Actress wins, seven nominations, and a career in three distinct acts.
Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978). She then largely left film for fitness media, built one of the most successful home-video businesses of the 1980s, returned to acting decades later, and has remained a working actress into her eighties.
12. Nicole Kidman
An Oscar, an unusually large filmography, and a deliberate strategy of backing directors over projects.
She won Best Actress for The Hours (2002). Her range of collaborators Kubrick, Lars von Trier, Baz Luhrmann, Jane Campion, Yorgos Lanthimos is wider than almost anyone’s on this list, and she has moved into producing prestige television with similar results.
13. Viola Davis
One of the very few performers to complete an EGOT.
She won Best Supporting Actress for Fences (2016), a Tony, an Emmy, and a Grammy, completing the set in 2023. She was the first Black woman to win the Triple Crown of Acting competitive Oscar, Emmy, and Tony.
Her win for How to Get Away with Murder made her the first Black woman to win the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series.
14. Emma Stone
Two Best Actress wins before turning 36.
La La Land (2016) and Poor Things (2023). That places her in a group of roughly fifteen women in Academy history with multiple lead wins, and she reached it faster than nearly all of them.
Her earlier commercial run Easy A, The Help, The Amazing Spider-Man means she arrived at the awards tier with a mainstream audience already in place.
15. Emma Watson
$9.29 billion worldwide, and the highest box office average per film of any actor in the top 20.
Sixteen qualifying films averaging $580.7 million each a higher per-film figure than any performer of any gender in the overall box office top 20. Eight Harry Potter films plus Beauty and the Beast account for nearly all of it.
She is the clearest illustration on this list of what a single correct casting decision, made at ten years old, can be worth.
16. Sandra Bullock
An Oscar, and one of the most durable commercial careers of the last thirty years.
She won Best Actress for The Blind Side (2009). Her hits span three decades Speed, Miss Congeniality, The Proposal, Gravity, The Heat, Bird Box across action, comedy, and drama.
Gravity is the outlier achievement: a film carried almost entirely by one performer alone on screen, which grossed over $700 million worldwide.
17. Halle Berry
The only Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress.
She won for Monster’s Ball in 2002. More than two decades later, the record still stands, which is itself the most-cited fact about the Academy’s history with Black actresses.
Berry also built a substantial commercial career through the X-Men films, Die Another Day, and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum.
18. Angelina Jolie
An Oscar, a global franchise, and a second career outside film entirely.
She won Best Supporting Actress for Girl, Interrupted (1999). Lara Croft: Tomb Raider made her one of the few actresses to headline an action franchise, and Maleficent passed $750 million worldwide.
Her humanitarian work with the UN refugee agency spans more than two decades and has arguably been more consistent than her filmography.
19. Jodie Foster
Two Best Actress wins, and a career that started at three years old and never broke.
The Accused (1988) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). She has since directed features and television, including episodes of Orange Is the New Black and House of Cards.
Child performers who transition to adult careers are rare. Ones who win two Oscars and become directors are essentially unique.
20. Jennifer Lawrence
An Oscar at 22, and one of the fastest ascents in Academy history.
She won Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and accumulated four nominations before turning 26. The Hunger Games franchise, which she headlined, made her the commercial anchor of a young-adult adaptation boom.
She was also the highest-paid actress in the world in 2015 and 2016, and became a prominent voice on pay disparity after the Sony hack revealed she had earned less than her male co-stars on American Hustle.
What the list shows
Three patterns worth noting.
Box office and awards barely overlap. Only Saldaña appears near the top of both. The highest-grossing actresses in history mostly have one Oscar or none, and the most-awarded ones mostly have modest commercial totals. These are two different careers.
Franchise casting decides the money. Every actress in the box office top tier — Saldaña, Johansson, Watson — got there through recurring roles in a small number of enormous properties. Volume of work barely matters; which properties you’re in matters enormously.
The Academy’s records are older than they look. Hepburn’s four wins have stood since 1981. Halle Berry’s Best Actress win has stood alone since 2002. Streep’s nomination record is the only major mark set recently, and her last nomination was in 2018.
Most successful actresses questions answered
Who is the most successful actress of all time?
It depends on the measure. Meryl Streep holds the record for Academy Award nominations with 21, more than any performer in history. Katharine Hepburn holds the record for acting wins with four Best Actress Oscars. Zoe Saldaña is the highest-grossing actor of all time, with $15.72 billion in worldwide box office.
Which actress has won the most Oscars?
Katharine Hepburn, with four Best Actress wins for Morning Glory (1933), Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). No performer of any gender has won more acting Oscars. Frances McDormand is next with three Best Actress wins.
Which actress has the most Oscar nominations?
Meryl Streep, with 21 nominations 17 for Best Actress and four for Best Supporting Actress. This is the record for any performer, male or female. Katharine Hepburn and Jack Nicholson are next with 12 each.
Who is the highest-grossing actress of all time?
Zoe Saldaña, at $15.72 billion worldwide across 34 leading roles, according to The Numbers. She leads all performers regardless of gender. Scarlett Johansson is second at $15.40 billion, and Emma Watson has the highest per-film average of anyone in the box office top 20 at $580.7 million.
Has a Black woman other than Halle Berry won Best Actress?
No. Halle Berry remains the only Black woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress, for Monster’s Ball in 2002. Black actresses have won Best Supporting Actress multiple times, including Viola Davis for Fences and Zoe Saldaña, who is Afro-Latina, for Emilia Pérez.
Which actress has both an Oscar and an EGOT?
Viola Davis. She won Best Supporting Actress for Fences, along with Emmy, Grammy, and Tony awards, completing her EGOT in 2023. She was also the first Black woman to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting competitive Oscar, Emmy, and Tony.
Which actresses have won Best Actress more than once?
Katharine Hepburn has four. Frances McDormand has three. Roughly a dozen actresses have two, including Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Glenda Jackson, Vivien Leigh, Luise Rainer, Emma Stone, Meryl Streep, and Hilary Swank.
Box office figures are from The Numbers’ worldwide leading-role rankings, compiled as of July 2026, and change while films remain in release. Award records are current as of September 2026.
