Who Is the King of Memorial Day Weekend Movies? We Ranked the Biggest Stars
Using box office numbers, Rotten Tomatoes scores, and cultural impact, we ranked Hollywood’s biggest Memorial Day weekend movie stars from the last 50 years.
Memorial Day weekend is widely considered the start of the summer movie season, but that might never have happened if Congress hadn’t passed an act in 1968 to permanently move the Memorial Day holiday (as well as Washington’s birthday and Columbus Day) to a Monday. When the Memorial Day three-day weekend was born, it opened the door for Memorial Day weekend movies to become a thing, which is exactly what happened less than a decade later.
In 1975, an up-and-coming Steven Spielberg unleashed what we now recognize as the first summer blockbuster, Jaws, proving that the summer months could be just as big for Hollywood, if not bigger, than the holiday season. And just two years after that, one of Spielberg’s buddies, George Lucas, took advantage of the Memorial Day weekend to gift the world Star Wars (later renamed A New Hope), informally signaling the start of the summer movie season for generations to follow.
With almost five decades of Memorial Day movies to look back upon, we decided to dig into the data to see if any trends emerged, and from a pool of more than 200 movies, we noticed a number of actors have blessed the holiday with some of the biggest movies of all time (and a few smaller ones). To crown the true king of Memorial Day weekend, we ranked Hollywood’s biggest stars who have led multiple Memorial Day films over the past five decades using box office numbers, Tomatometer and Popcornmeter scores, and the cultural significance of each film at release and beyond.
These are the actors who have defined Memorial Day weekend moviegoing over the last 50 years.
Notable Mentions
Before we get to the juicy stuff, it’s worth highlighting a few fun things we learned as we sifted through the 200+ films released on Memorial Day weekend since 1977.
The Star Wars franchise not only inaugurated the concept of the Memorial Day weekend blockbuster release with its first film, it has made the holiday weekend its home. The entire original trilogy (Episodes IV, V, and VI), 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, and this week’s The Mandalorian and Grogu are all Memorial Day releases. What’s more, if the three films of the Prequel Trilogy (Episodes I, II, and III) had opened just a week later, they also would have been Memorial Day releases.
Outside of Star Wars, though, a number of other franchises have also taken advantage of the holiday. The Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, and X-Men franchises all had three Memorial Day releases, while Poltergeist, Alien, The Hangover, Rambo, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Beverly Hills Cop all had two.
Disney used Memorial Day weekends to open three of its live-action remakes of animated classics: Aladdin (2019), The Little Mermaid (2023), and Lilo & Stitch (2025). And while it technically isn’t a remake, 2021’s live-action Cruella, starring Emma Stone as the 101 Dalmatians villain, also came out on Memorial Day weekend.
And speaking of Cruella, firmly female-led movies have been few and far between, making up less than a quarter of all the films released during the Memorial Day corridor. Ridley Scott provided a pair of classics in Alien and Thelma & Louise, alongside films like Notting Hill, Enough, Saved!, Sex and the City 2, Booksmart, and A Quiet Place Part II. The Memorial Day weekend — and, truthfully, most of Hollywood’s history until recently — has been dominated by leading men. Which brings us to the five actors whose Memorial Day weekend movies outshine all the rest.
5. Will Smith
Total Domestic Box Office Gross (Adjusted for Inflation): $819,429,052
First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: Made in America was admittedly not a Will Smith vehicle. It’s probably best remembered — if it’s remembered at all — as the movie that sparked an affair between stars Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg that very publicly ended the former’s marriage. But Smith did, of course, headline both Men in Black 3 and Disney’s live-action remake of Aladdin. MIB3 was the highest-grossing of its franchise, pairing Smith with Josh Brolin, whose uncanny impression of a young Tommy Lee Jones became a highlight of the film. And say what you will about the Disney remakes, but Aladdin’s Popcornmeter and opening weekend box office totals both rank in the top 10 of the entire list.
4. Sylvester Stallone
Total Domestic Box Office Gross (Adjusted for Inflation): $1,399,045,466
There’s a reason why Sly Stallone is considered an action icon of the 1980s; just look at his run of movies, and those are only the ones that were released on a Memorial Day weekend. Rocky III isn’t as iconic as the Oscar-winning original (or arguably even Rocky IV, which served as the backstory for 2018’s Creed II), but Rocky’s match with Mr. T’s Clubber Lang is still a classic. And while no Rambo movie would ever again reach the critical heights of 1982’s First Blood, it was Rambo: First Blood Part II that turned the character into the full-throttle action hero we know him as today. Cobra, Rambo III, and Cliffhanger are somewhat lesser entries in Stallone’s filmography, but Cliffhanger has its apologists, and Cobra has arguably the most badass poster ever released. That’s gotta count for something.
3. Johnny Depp
Total Domestic Box Office Gross (Adjusted for Inflation): $1,001,397,418
Johnny Depp’s cultural cachet has diminished some in recent years, but the three films that represent his Memorial Day releases tell a different story. Besides remaining a ’90s touchstone with a cult following, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ Popcornmeter also sits in the top 25 of all Memorial Day films. And sure, neither of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies here is an all-timer, but Dead Men Tell No Tales likewise falls within the top 25 opening weekends despite not featuring Orlando Bloom or Keira Knightley, while At World’s End ranks third overall in the same category with a whopping $114 million Memorial Day haul. At World’s End also ultimately made almost $1 billion worldwide, and Dead Men raked in close to $800 million of its own. Critics may not have liked them much, but these were undeniably massive hits benefiting from the presence of arguably Depp’s most iconic character.
2. Tom Cruise
Total Domestic Box Office Gross (Adjusted for Inflation): $1,807,425,044
Looking at Tom Cruise’s lineup of Memorial Day films, it probably isn’t too surprising to see him at No. 2 on the list. All three Mission: Impossible movies, including the very first one 30 years ago in 1996, rank within the top 30 Memorial Day weekend openings. Top Gun: Maverick is second overall, behind only last year’s Lilo & Stitch, but it also boasts the highest Popcornmeter score of any Memorial Day release ever and the highest Tomatometer score of any wide release on the holiday weekend. These are all proper blockbuster films representing franchises that have managed to either stay relevant for literally decades or, in the case of Top Gun: Maverick, be resurrected with insanely successful results. Tom Cruise is one of the few people still around who can sell a movie on his name alone, which he’s proven at least four times on Memorial Day.
1. Harrison Ford
Total Domestic Box Office Gross (Adjusted for Inflation): $4,933,934,951
Steven Spielberg inaugurated the modern summer blockbuster, and George Lucas did the same for Memorial Day movies, so it’s rather fitting that their creations and collaborations helped propel Harrison Ford to the top of this list. It was Lucas’ Star Wars that made Ford a household name, and the subsequent releases of The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi essentially helped establish the Memorial Day holiday as a premier weekend for movie releases leading into the summer season. And as if that wasn’t enough, Ford then collaborated with both Spielberg and Lucas when they all combined forces (along with legendary composer John Williams) on the Indiana Jones movies. If Raiders of the Lost Ark had been released just a few weeks earlier (it opened on June 12, 1981), it would have given Ford two of the most iconic trilogies of all time (plus Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), all released on Memorial Day weekends. These movies basically made Memorial Day releases a thing, and for that, we’ve gotta crown Harrison Ford the King.
