The highest grossing actress of all time is not Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts or Meryl Streep.
The title belongs to Avenger's star Scarlett Johansson, whose films have grossed $4.4 billion in North America alone.
And the Australian actress Cate Blanchett is not far behind. Her films are estimated to have brought in $3.6 billion at the box office in North America, with her most lucrative film to date being Peter Jackson's Return of the King, the third film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
At 31, Johansson is the youngest actor and only woman to appear in a top ten list of Hollywood box office earnings. Harrison Ford holds the top spot, his movies bringing in $6.5 billion at the American box office, according to the tracking site Box Office Mojo.
Ford's return as Han Solo in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was the biggest box office earner of his 40-year career, which began ironically with the first Star Wars film in 1977.
Ford beat out Johansson's Avengers' co-star Samuel L Jackson at number two, followed by Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks, Robert Downey Jr, Eddie Murphy, Tom Cruise, Michael Caine and Johnny Depp.
Johansson's tenth position caps a stellar year in which she starred in The Avengers franchise, and Captain America: Civil War, and lent her voice to Kaa, the Indian python, in The Jungle Book.
The Jungle Book and Captain America have grossed $480 million and $542 million respectively at the American box office. Her highest grossing movie is Marvel's The Avengers, which is also the fifth highest grossing movie of all time in the United States.
Actress Cameron Diaz came in at number 19 with her films, including the Shrek franchise, raking in about $4 billion. Helena Bonham Carter sat at number 26 with $3.78 billion, propelled by her role in the Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows Part 2. Blanchett came in at number 29 with $3.76 billion followed by Roberts at number 30 with $3.67 billion.
The list is likely to fuel further debate about the Hollywood wage gender gap and the respective box office pulling power of male and female actors. The earning capacity of a starring actor's films doesn't always reflect wages commanded across genders and roles.
Johansson spoke about the gender wage gap in Cosmopolitan magazine's May edition: "There's something icky about me having that conversation unless it applies to a greater whole," she said.
"I am very fortunate, I make a really good living, and I'm proud to be an actress who's making as much as many of my male peers at this stage … I think every woman has [been underpaid], but unless I'm addressing it as a larger problem, for me to talk about my own personal experience with it feels a little obnoxious. It's part of a larger conversation about feminism in general."
A former child star who made her film debut at age nine, Johansson made the rarely successful transition to adult movies, coming to prominence in films such as The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Lost in Translation (2003). A run of roles in blockbuster comic film adaptions including The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Captain America: The Civil War has proved she is a bankable star.
Johansson has spoken about the gender wage gap telling Cosmopolitan magazine: "There's something icky about me having that conversation unless it applies to a greater whole. I am very fortunate, I make a really good living, and I'm proud to be an actress who's making as much as many of my male peers at this stage… I think every woman has [been underpaid], but unless I'm addressing it as a larger problem, for me to talk about my own personal experience with it feels a little obnoxious. It's part of a larger conversation about feminism in general."
