Love him or hate him, Will Smith’s bona-fide status as one of the film industry’s all-time greats is unchallenged. Time and time again, fans line up and pay to see him on the big screen. His 2021 film King Richard about the Williams tennis family may not have performed as well, only grossing $39 million against a budget of $50 million. Still, the Independence Day star still holds the record for the most consecutive $100 million+ hits at the U.S. box office.
Will Smith's acting career took off in 1990 when he played a street savvy teenager in the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel Air. It is on the big screen, however, that he has truly made his mark as an actor. Here is a list of every Will Smith movie that has hit and surpassed the $100 million mark, worldwide, according to The Numbers.
23 Will Smith - Made In America - $104.9 Million - Supporting Actor
Will Smith’s very first big screen role was in the 1992 drama Where the Day Takes You, which was directed by Marc Rocco. He followed this up with a star turn in Made in America, a comedy film about a black woman who discovers that her father is in fact a white man — and a sperm donor. Those two main roles were played by Nia Long and Ted Danson respectively.
Smith starred in a supporting role as Tea Cake Walters, Nia’s best friend. Made in America was made on a $22 million budget. It would become the first ever film featuring Smith to go past $100 million in ticket sales worldwide, by around $5 million.
22 Will Smith - Bad Boys - $141.2 Million - Starring Role
Hot on the heels of Made in America, Will Smith played an even more integral part in Six Degrees of Separation, a comedy-drama released in 1993. While the movie was a critical success, it ended up being a box office bomb. Thankfully, for the actor, this turned out to be nothing more than a bump on the road.
In 1995, he brought the Bad Boys franchise to life with the first of a trilogy of films alongside Martin Lawrence. From a production budget of only $19 million, the movie made a splash at the box office, with a return of $141.2 million. According to Celebrity Net Worth, Smith went home with $2 million from the gig.
21 Will Smith - Independence Day - $817.4 Million - Starring Role
After his huge success with those first few movies, Will Smith’s next big hit was the popular science fiction film Independence Day. Fittingly, Independence Day was released on July 4, 1996, having been written in only three weeks. Smith enacted the role of Captain Steven Hiller, a Marine F/A-18 pilot who joins forces with a geek, the US President, and a group of survivors to save the world after an attack by aliens.
Independence Day would go on to become the 2nd highest grossing film of the 1990s, just behind Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park from 1993. Smith’s salary package from the movie was $5 million.
20 Will Smith - Men In Black - $588 Million - Starring Role
Men in Black is another popular sci-fi action series of films starring Will Smith, based on the 1990 comic book by Lowell Cunningham. It was first adapted for the big screen in 1997, with Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as its leads. They played the Agents J and K respectively. The movie, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, was produced on a budget of $90 million. It would consequently blow that figure out of the water, with a profit of $498 million at the box office.
The success of this first picture then spawned three sequels, although Smith was not involved in the final one of those, released in 2019. His reported salary from that very first MIB was in the region of $5 million.
19 Will Smith - Enemy Of The State - $250.6 Million - Starring Role
Will Smith continued his incredible run of box office success with another impressive performance in 1998. This time, he played a labor lawyer known as Robert Clay Dean in the political action thriller film Enemy of the State by Tony Scott. He was joined in the production by an ensemble cast that included Gene Hackman, Jon Voight and Lisa Bonet, among others.
Touchstone Pictures injected $90 million to get the movie made, and the studio was not disappointed by the box office earnings: Enemy of the State grossed $250.6 million, further cementing Smith’s status as one of the most valuable actors in Hollywood within that period.
18 Will Smith - Wild Wild West - $221.2 Million - Starring Role
Wild Wild West will probably always be known as the huge flop that Will Smith chose to do instead of playing Neo in The Matrix. While this statement is factually correct, it is also true that the bold Western production — another of Barry Sonnenfeld’s works — still managed to gross $221.2 million at the box office.
Many filmmakers would likely kill for such numbers, but there was a caveat in this case: the film had a budget of up to $241 million. As well as this dismal return, Wild Wild West was also panned by critics, and was even nominated for eight Golden Raspberry Awards in 2000. Even so, Smith couldn’t complain about his $7 million remuneration package.
17 Will Smith - Men In Black II - $441.8 Million - Starring Role
Barry Sonnenfeld was given $140 million to work with while directing Men in Black II, with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones reprising their roles from the original film. The sequel was a direct consequence of the success of the first installment in the franchise, with no prior plans having been made for a follow-up.
MIIB was deemed by critics to be inferior to the original movie, at least in terms of the story and production value. Smith and Jones were nonetheless praised for their performances. While the production did not quite hit similar heights as its predecessor commercially, it still managed to gross well over $400 million.
16 Will Smith - Bad Boys II - $273.3 Million - Starring Role
Bad Boys II was another massively successful sequel for Will Smith, and was in fact released a few months after MIIB. Other than the actor’s presence in both, they also shared similar trajectories in terms of critical and commercial reception. Critics also panned the latter release for not being as good as the original Bad Boys.
Luckily, audiences voted with their pockets instead, and they helped the film to bring in $273.3 million at the box office. This marked a profit of nearly $150 million, albeit prior to a consideration for marketing and other costs. Smith was paid $20 million to star in this particular movie.
15 Will Smith - I, Robot - $348.6 Million - Starring Role
Will Smith continued the trend of critical failure and commercial success with his 2004 science fiction film I, Robot. He played the leading character of Detective Del Spooner, a Chicago Police Detective from 2035 who does not like the prevalent robots who are built to serve humanity. The character himself is partly robotic, having had his body reconstructed following a car crash.
I, Robot did not exactly receive negative reviews in the same way that Smith’s two previous $100 million+ films did. This mixed critical reception also had little impact on its commercial performance, as was demonstrated by a gross revenue of $348.6 million.
14 Will Smith - Shark Tale - $371.7 Million - Starring Role
Shark Tale was the second nine-figure film starring Will Smith to hit theaters in 2004. It also happened to be the very first voice role of his big screen career. Prior to that, though, he had voiced a character in HBO’s animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child in 1997.
In Shark Tale, Smith portrayed a cunning fish named Oscar, of the bluestreak cleaner wrasse variety. He was reportedly paid a neat sum of $15 million for the role, with the movie amassing a remarkable $300 million at the box office.
