Most Successful Bollywood Actors: 2010 – 2016

At the end of 2016, we update our popular article ‘Most Successful Actors of the current decade‘. While the last article, published midway through last year did not include 2016 releases like FAN and Airlift, this page has been updated with the box office performance of all 2016 films. We have also included rising actors like Tiger Shroff and Sushant Singh Rajput.

Note: The last film of 2016, Dangal, is yet to complete its run. We’ve assumed that the film will finish with net box office collections of 375 crore. This page will be updated after the Dangal run ends.

Most number of films between 2010 – 2016:

• Akshay Kumar – 24 films
• Ajay Devgn – 19 films
• Emraan Hashmi – 16 films
• Salman Khan – 11 films
• Shahid Kapoor – 11 films
• Ranbir Kapoor – 9 films
• Ranveer Singh - 9 films
• Shah Rukh Khan – 8 films
• Hrithik Roshan – 7 films
• Arjun Kapoor – 7 films
• Varun Dhawan – 7 films
• Sidharth Malhotra – 6 films
• Aamir Khan – 4 films
• Sushant Singh Rajput – 4 films
• Tiger Shroff – 3 films

Total Net Collections for each actor between 2010 – 2016:

• Salman Khan – 1977 crore
• Akshay Kumar – 1841 crore
• Ajay Devgn – 1172 crore
• Shah Rukh Khan – 1096 crore
• Aamir Khan – 1093 crore (will be updated after Dangal ends, could move to 3rd)
• Hrithik Roshan – 780 crore
• Ranbir Kapoor – 754 crore
• Ranveer Singh - 642 crore
• Emraan Hashmi – 619 cr
• Varun Dhawan – 577 crore
• Shahid Kapoor – 394 crore
• Sidharth Malhotra – 398 crore
• Arjun Kapoor – 382 crore
• Sushant Singh Rajput – 253 crore
• Tiger Shroff – 160 crore

Average net box office collections per film between 2010 – 2016:

• Aamir Khan – 273.25 crore (221.4 cr including Dhobi Ghat)
• Salman Khan – 179.7 crore
• Shah Rukh Khan – 137.0 crore
• Hrithik Roshan – 111.4 crore
• Ranbir Kapoor – 83.7 crore
• Varun Dhawan - 82.4 crore
• Akshay Kumar – 76.7 crore
• Ranveer Singh - 71.3 crore
• Sidharth Malhotra – 66.3 crore
• Sushant Singh Rajput – 63.2 crore
• Ajay Devgn – 61.68 crore
• Arjun Kapoor - 54.6 crore
• Tiger Shroff – 53.3 crore
• Emraan Hashmi – 38.68 crore
• Shahid Kapoor – 35.8 crore

Success Ratio i.e Above Average or better  (probably the most important, because it’s the percentage of films that recovered investment)

• Varun Dhawan – 100%
• Aamir Khan – 100% (75% if Dhobi Ghat is included)
• Salman Khan – 91%
• Shah Rukh Khan – 89%
• Sushant Singh Rajput – 75%
• Tiger Shroff – 67%
• Hrithik Roshan – 57%
• Arjun Kapoor – 57%
• Ranbir Kapoor – 56%
• Akshay Kumar – 54%
• Sidharth Malhotra – 50%
• Ranveer Singh - 44%
• Ajay Devgn – 42%
• Emraan Hashmi – 32%
• Shahid Kapoor – 27%

Hit Ratio i.e Hit or better

• Salman Khan – 82%
• Shah Rukh Khan – 78%
• Aamir Khan – 75%
• Varun Dhawan – 72%
• Tiger Shroff – 67%
• Hrithik Roshan – 57%
• Arjun Kapoor – 57%
• Ranbir Kapoor – 56%
• Sidharth Malhotra – 50%
• Sushant Singh Rajput – 50%
• Ranveer Singh - 44%
• Akshay Kumar – 42%
• Ajay Devgn – 37%
• Emraan Hashmi – 26%
• Shahid Kapoor – 18%

Blockbuster Ratio (this was worth pointing out, simply because the difference between actors is huge!)

• Aamir Khan – 75%
• Salman Khan – 73%
• Ranbir Kapoor – 22%
• Hrithik Roshan – 14%
• Shah Rukh Khan – 13%
• Emraan Hashmi – 11%
• Ajay Devgn – 11%
• Akshay Kumar – 4%

Summing up the year – The men who did well:

• Aamir Khan: What does one say about this man? He has single-handedly taken Dangal to a mammoth 300 crore plus grosser. A box office phenomenon, who has leapfrogged from 718 crore to 1093 crore (assuming Dangal ends with 375 crore) this decade with just one film. That’s nearly as much as the entire decade collections of Shahid Kapoor, who made his debut well before the decade began. His average per film has also jumped to a mind-boggling 273 crore per film, which is an outstanding 220 crore+ even if his off-beat art film Dhobi Ghat is included. By far the best for an actor this decade and also the only actor to average more than 200 crore per film. Legend. Note: We have removed Dhobi Ghat from the list to make it fair.
• Salman Khan: It was supposed to be his year, until Dangal arrived and took the sheen away from the phenomenal run of Sultan. He still commands the biggest opening in the industry, both in terms of collections, consistency, fan following and the number of tickets sold. 2017 will be a challenge for him, because in the two-way battle for the numero-uno position in the industry, Aamir has upped the ante and it’s upto Salman to challenge those numbers and remain at the top of his game. Inspite of Dangal’s outstanding run, let’s not take anything away from the fact that Sultan managed to collect 300 crore in a year when no other Hindi film crossed 150.
• Akshay Kumar: It’s been a excellent year for Akshay, his success ratio has increased from 48 to 54%, his hit-ratio has gone up from 33% to 42% too. And with him doing interesting films and making all the right moves (as far as positivity in the media and image is concerned), Akshay is expected to take it to the next level in 2017. In 2016, he moved one step ahead into the Top 4, could he stake a claim into the Top 3 in 2017? That’s going to be the big question.
• Sushant Singh Rajput: Backed by the stardom and popularity of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Sushant delivered the year’s 3rd highest grosser. It’ll now be upto him to sustain the momentum and establish himself in the industry.
• Ranbir Kapoor: After several back-to-back disasters, Ranbir finally got the box office ‘hit’ he so desperately needed. ‘Ae Dil Hai Mushkil’ also managed to beat the competition from a big film like ‘Shivaay’ and comprehensively won the controversial clash.
• Arjun Kapoor: It was a good year for him, making a comeback after the failure of Tevar in 2015. Ki and Ka was a solid box office hit, he has edged out Ranbir in both success and hit ratios too. 2017 will be important with ’Half Girlfriend’ and ’Mubarakan’.
• Varun Dhawan: A steady year. ‘Dishoom’ did fairly well to touch the 70 crore mark, even though the trailers and other promos weren’t well-received. The film opened well and went on to recover its investment, although the actor and the rest of the ‘Dishoom’ team would’ve hoped for a better lifetime total. However, Varun retains his 100% success ratio.
• Tiger Shroff: The year began very well for Tiger with the success of ‘Baaghi’, but all the good work was undone with ‘A Flying Jatt’ crash-landing instead of flying at the box office.
• Shahid Kapoor: For someone who made his debut more than 13 years ago, his record remains poor but ‘Udta Punjab’ did fairly well at the box office. When will his breakthrough year come? When will he start doing films that appeal to the audience more than the critics? The questions remain.

The men who didn’t:

• Shah Rukh Khan: The much-hyped FAN turned out to be a big setback for SRK, right after the under-performance of Dilwale during Christmas in 2015. No one would’ve expected the film to fall below the 100 crore mark, but it finished with a poor total of 85 crore. Unlike ‘Mohenjo Daro’, the writing wasn’t on the wall for ‘Fan’ prior to release, as the trailer got a very good response. 2017 is going to be a very important year if the superstar, who still commands one of the biggest fan-following in the industry, has to challenge the likes of Aamir and Salman who are way ahead in the race at the moment.
• Hrithik Roshan: Mohenjo Daro was one of the most anticipated films of 2016, but right from the first trailer to every other promo – nothing worked for the Ashutosh Gowariker film. If the embarrassment of losing to ‘Rustom’ wasn’t enough, Mohenjo Daro is the biggest disaster of 2016 – not including smaller films like Great Grand Masti, Rock On 2 and Mirzya. Hrithik has to turn things around in 2017, but it isn’t going to be easy with his first release ‘Kaabil’ all set to take on SRK’s ‘Raees’.
• Ajay Devgn: 2017 was a forgettable year for Ajay as his ambitious film ‘Shivaay’ couldn’t take a big initial nor could it sustain well enough to recover costs in the long run.
• Ranveer Singh: Befikre carried high expectations, more so since it was Aditya Chopra’s first film in 8 years and he was directing his first film without Shah Rukh. Ranveer was returning after ‘Bajirao Mastani’, a career-defining film. Unfortunately, Befikre was rejected by the audience.
• Emraan Hashmi: 2016 was yet another big setback as the franchise which gave him his biggest career blockbuster, failed to even take a initial