Whatever the genre — action, thriller, or horror — there are most likely carefully choreographed stunts in all your favourite films. But who are the heroes behind these moments?
From box office hits to social media buzz, the team at Spin Genie UK has crunched the numbers to reveal Hollywood's top stunt performers, from actors who do their own stunts to dedicated stunt people. Discover who's taking the biggest risks and raking in the rewards!
Tom Cruise is the most successful actor who does their own stunts
First of all, we’re looking at actors who try their hand at doing their own stunts. Whether getting hit by cars, dropped from massive heights, or jumping between buildings — these actors aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty.
1. Tom Cruise | stunt actor score of 9.86
Tom Cruise is the undisputed king of doing his own stunts, scoring a nearly perfect 9.86. His work in the Mission: Impossible franchise is iconic, from hanging off planes to scaling skyscrapers. The movies where he did his own stunts have gone on to make almost £650 million at the box office and have won 273 awards.
Cruise has always pushed himself to perform risky stunts, even when it meant breaking bones. In Mission: Impossible – Fallout, he broke his ankle during a jump but kept filming and doing his own stunts, saying he wanted to “put the audience on the edge of their seat.”
2. Christian Bale | stunt actor score of 9.41
Christian Bale comes in strong at number two with a stunt actor score of 9.41. The average IMDb score from films he did stunts in is an impressive eight out of 10, with audiences also rating them almost 83 out of 100.
Known for transforming his body for roles, Bale also does many of his own stunts. In The Dark Knight, he performed intense combat sequences and stunts at the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago — a cool 1,451 feet high.
However, Bale has made it clear that he doesn’t perform all of his stunts himself, leaving some of the more dangerous ones to the real professionals.
3. Harrison Ford | stunt actor score of 8.79
Harrison Ford, with a stunt score of 8.79, is a living legend when it comes to performing his own stunts. Whether he’s outrunning a boulder in Indiana Jones or carrying out hand-to-hand combat in The Fugitive, Ford has always thrown himself into the action. He even holds the title of the oldest stunt-performing actor after his work in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Both the average critic and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes are in the 80s — the only actor to do this in the top five. However, Ford has stayed humble about his stunt work, describing it as “running, jumping, and falling down.”
Daniel Craig shines in fight stunts, while Matt Damon discovered a new fear
Two actors who particularly excel in their fighting scenes are Daniel Craig and Matt Damon — ranking fourth with a score of 8.34 and fifth with 8.07. As James Bond, Craig performed some of the most intense stunts in the franchise. Craig went all in, from rooftop chases to brutal fight scenes in Skyfall. Similarly, Damon trained in martial arts and weapons for his role in the Bourne series.
However, stunt work isn’t all plain sailing. Matt Damon uncovered a fear he didn’t even know he had while filming The Bourne Supremacy. As he jumped from a bridge, and found out that he was terrified of heights!
Michelle Yeoh’s stunts means she’s in the top spot, with a score of 8.43
It’s time to dive into the actresses who are trying out stunts and bringing the action to their own films.
1. Michelle Yeoh | stunt actress score of 8.43
Michelle Yeoh’s stunt work has made her a global icon, scoring 8.43 in the stunt actress rankings. She’s known for her martial arts and acrobatic skills, shown in The Heroic Trio and Supercop, as well as the Oscar-winning Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Perhaps the most eye-catching factor is the number of awards her films have won — 524 in total, 101 from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and 411 from Everything Everywhere.
Yeoh didn’t start off easy either. Her very first stunt saw her flip backwards and smash through glass in Yes, Madam!
2. Angelina Jolie | stunt actress score of 6.29
With a score of 6.29, Angelina Jolie comes in second for her incredible stunt work in films that went on to make over £500 million at the box office. In films like Salt and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Jolie completed 99% of the stunts, from climbing cliffs to diving into underwater sequences.
Despite the number of stunts she’s been able to perform, film producers still have to draw the line somewhere. While filming the second Tomb Raider, they refused to let her swim with sharks or jump from a skyscraper, no matter how much she begged.
3. Cameron Diaz | stunt actress score of 4.23
While Cameron Diaz is best known for her comedy roles, she’s also done some serious stunt work in movies like Charlie's Angels and Knight and Day. The 29 awards, over £325 million at the box office, and average ratings ranging from 46 to 55 have resulted in a score of 4.23 out of 10.
Her latest outing in Back In Action even resulted in her co-star, Jamie Foxx, calling her “Superwoman Cameron.”
Gina Carano and Chloë Grace Moretz tie for fourth place
Both Gina Carano and Chloë Grace Moretz take fourth place with a score of 3.70 out of 10.
A former MMA fighter, Carano brought her fight skills to films like Haywire, Deadpool, and Fast & Furious 6. She trained rigorously for every stunt, often doing the majority of her own fight sequences.
On the other hand, Chloë Grace Moretz, known for roles in Kick-Ass and The 5th Wave, is newer to the world of stunt work. This hasn’t affected her confidence, though, as she described the stunts as “easy” because she’d “done ballet and gymnastics before.”
Wendy Leech’s stunts have helped her films to earn over £530 million, on average
Sometimes, it’s best to leave it to the professionals. Here are the top highly-trained, disciplined, and talented stunt actors and actresses who are smashing their films.
1. Wendy Leech | stunt actor score of 7.98
In first place is none other than Wendy Leech, who has acted in over 30 films. As one of the most well-known stunt actors, Leech has doubled for icons like Karen Allen in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Margot Kidder in Superman and Superman II.
Leech also doubled for C-3PO in Star Wars: Episode IV—A New Hope, which went on to win 69 awards, for a total of 315 across her career of stunt work.
Hits like these have seen Wendy's films' total box office earnings reach almost £540 million, and the average audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is almost 70 out of 100.
2. Colin Follenweider | stunt actor score of 7.18
Colin Follenweider lands in second place with 7.18 out of 10. Some of his most famous stunt work is in The Amazing Spider-Man series, Transformers, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
His IMDb score of 6.3 and Rotten Tomatoes critic rating of 57.3 suggest that critics are a bit mixed, but the films he’s worked on have won 483 awards — so he must be doing something right. Follenweider also has over 1,200 social media followers cheering him on, although he hasn’t posted since 2017.
3. Adam Hart | stunt actor score of 6.91
Adam Hart is in third place with a stunt actor score of 6.91. His theatrical and live stunt show background has helped him produce some of Hollywood’s most realistic actions.
He has more than double the awards than any other stuntperson in the top five, 1,394, to be exact. Hart even has been nominated for an individual Taurus World Stunt Award for “Hardest Hit” for his stunt in Die Hard 4.0.
He’s been a key player in some of the most epic action films, including Avengers: Endgame and The Dark Knight Rises, while collaborating with directors like Christopher Nolan, James Gunn, and Clint Eastwood.
Hart’s average audience score of 60.4 and box office earnings of just under £400 million prove that people can’t get enough of his adrenaline-pumping performances.
Zoë Bell and Debbie Evans: Two legendary female stunt actors
Zoë Bell and Debbie Evans secure fourth and fifth place with respective scores of 6.11 and 5.75.
Bell famously doubled for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill and Cate Blanchett in Thor: Ragnarok, even stepping in front of the camera herself to play Six-Horse Judy in The Hateful Eight. Her films have earned an average of nearly £200 million and won over 250 awards.
Then there’s Debbie Evans, a motorcycling master whose bike tricks can be seen in the Fast & Furious franchise, The Matrix Reloaded, and DeathSport. Most impressively, her films have won the second-highest number of awards, with a total of 640.
It seems she’s been a daredevil since birth, too, as she started competing in motorcycle trials at age nine.
Methodology
We used IMDb Actors That Do Their Own Stunts, IMDb Hollywood's Greatest Stunt Performers, ScreenRant, and HowStuffWorks to compile a list of actors, actresses, and stunt doubles.
We used IMDb to source the total number of awards each actor received for their acting and the number of movies with stunts performed as of 30/01/2025. We only looked at feature-length movies where each actor performed stunts, including movies where high-profile actors performed some of their own stunts and used stunt doubles for other scenes. We also used IMDb to source each movie’s rating out of 10 and the total number of awards each movie received as of 20/01/2025.
We sourced the box office earnings of each movie with stunts performed using Box Office Mojo, looking at the lifetime worldwide earnings where available as of 30/01/2025. We used the US Inflation Calculator to adjust all earnings to 2025. We used Google Finance to convert all figures from USD to GBP on 03/02/2025.
We used Rotten Tomatoes to source the critic and audience score of each movie as of 20/01/2025.
We used Instagram and TikTok to source the total number of social media followers each actor has as of 30/01/2025.
We gave each actor a normalised score out of 10 for each factor before calculating the average score out of 10 for each actor across all factors, which formed our ranking. We used the following factors, each given equal weighting:
- Total box office earnings GBP (inflation-adjusted)
- Average IMDb score
- Average Rotten Tomatoes Critic score /100
- Average Rotten Tomatoes Audience score /100
- Total awards received (for films they worked on)
- Awards received for all acting work
- Instagram and TikTok followers
