Inside Leonardo DiCaprio's record-breaking career chock-full of highest-grossing movies

Leonardo DiCaprio has starred in an impressive amount of record-breaking movies.

It may have taken the star, who celebrates his 50^th birthday today (11 November), six Academy Awards nominations to finally lift an Oscar (best actor for The Revenant in 2016), but he’s been breaking world records for decades.

His first came with his titular role in Baz Luhrmann’s modern-day take on William Shakespeare classic Romeo + Juliet.

Leo starred alongside Claire Danes as the star-crossed lovers who met a tragic end.

Box office figures were far from being a tale of woe though.

The flick remains the highest-grossing Shakespeare movie after taking $147,542,381 during its general release between 1 November 1996 and 14 February 1997.

Just one year later, he starred in the highest-grossing romance film - Titanic.

The American actor played Jack, a working class lad who wins a ticket for the doomed maiden voyage of the RMS Titanic.

While on board, he begins a secret and ill-fated romance with upper class Rose (Kate Winslet), who is engaged to steel fortune heir Cal (Billy Zane).

The James Cameron epic has made $2,201,647,264 since its release on 19 December 1997.

It was 15 years later that Leo’s next record-breaking movie hit cinemas.

Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained is the highest-grossing western.

This time, Leo was the bad guy, starring as Calvin Candie, the owner of a plantation that freed slave Django (Jamie Foxx) is trying to rescue his wife from.

The movie grossed $449,948,323 when it was released on Christmas Day 2012.

One year later, Leo starred in the highest-grossing black comedy film – The Wolf of Wall Street.

He played Jordan Belfort, a real-life stockbroker who told his unbelievable story in a memoir of the same name.

The Martin Scorsese movie pulled in $389,870,414 after its release on Christmas Day 2013.

The Wolf of Wall Street also previously held the record for most swearing in one film, with the 'f word' uttered an atonishing 506 times.

That record now belongs to Swearnet with a total of 868 expletives.

Leo is known and beloved for his iconic roles, but interestingly, he’s never played the same part in a follow-up film.

In fact, he’s the highest-grossing actor to never feature in a full sequel.

He did appear in Critters 3 back in 1991, but that doesn’t count as it’s the only movie of the franchise he was in.

None of his movies have ever sparked a sequel.

There has been a Titanic 2 but it wasn’t actually a sequel, it was a mockbuster.

2010’s Inception was followed up by a 14-minute animated short Inception: The Cobol Job, but it was a prequel.

Header image: 20th Century Fox/Shutterstock