Denzel Washington | American Gangster | $40 Million

Denzel Washington is widely described as an actor who “reconfigured the concept of classic movie stardom.” Most of his movie credits are defined by “grace, dignity, humanity, and inner strength.” The 65-year-old actor has been portraying real-life figures, like the famed South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in the 1987 movie Cry Freedom and many others. With his incredible acting, no wonder he received a whopping $40 million for doing the 2007 biographical crime movie American Gangster.

This film is the first movie Washington did opposite Russel Crow since the 1995 Virtuosity. Here, he played the role of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina, who had been doing illegal practices in the U.S. through American service planes from the Vietnam War. This film has been well received by most film critics and was good enough to be nominated for twenty-one awards.