Zendaya and Anne Hathaway rank among Instagram's highest-earning actresses

A new report from PlayersTime examining the highest-grossing movie stars of 2026 and their digital footprint on Instagram has found that only three women rank among the top ten most-followed actors on the platform: Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, and Sadie Sink.

To compile the rankings, PlayersTime combined box office earnings across each actor's major 2025-2026 theatrical releases with active Instagram follower counts and monthly Google search volumes. The names were also categorized by age and country of origin.

According to the report, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson leads the field with 381.1 million followers, making him the world's most followed American man and placing him among the highest-grossing movie stars in 2026. He is followed by Zendaya (178.6 million) and Tom Holland (68.6 million). Of the world's highest-earning movie stars, only three women broke into the Instagram ranking: Zendaya, followed by Anne Hathaway (44.5 million) and Sadie Sink (35.1 million).

Other key takeaways from the report

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson rules as the most followed actor on Instagram and the most followed American man with a massive 381.1 million followers. Having kept a relatively quiet profile throughout most of 2026, he is currently keeping his massive digital empire on absolute edge as the internet gears up for his big-screen video game avatar return in Jumanji: Open World, landing in theatres this Christmas.

Securing the second spot is Zendaya, who commands a staggering 178.6 million followers on Instagram and officially ranks as 2026's most bankable actress on the global index. Off-screen, her highly publicised wedding to Tom Holland cemented them as the ultimate real-life Hollywood power couple, making their side-by-side dominance at the top of the digital landscape even more fascinating to watch and follow.

Taking the third spot on the Instagram podium is Tom Holland with an active 68.6 million followers, officially ranking as the UK's number-one digital movie star and the most bankable actor in 2026. Interestingly, he has starred in every single theatrical release his wife took part in this year, creating an unprecedented box office correlation that matches their shared social media dominance step-for-step.

Out of the world's highest-earning movie stars in 2026, only 3 women rank in the top 10 most followed on Instagram. Apart from Zendaya, the exclusive group includes Anne Hathaway with 44.5 million followers, who remarkably claims the title of 2026's highest-earning actress while releasing five movies and navigating her pregnancy. Rounding out the trio is Gen Z favourite Sadie Sink with 35.1 million followers.

Meanwhile, Jon Bernthal has completely hijacked global box office rankings as the year's top bankable actor, pulling in a monumental $4.33 billion across his most recent releases. By anchoring massive mega-hits like Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, alongside high-profile releases like The Amateur and The Accountant 2, Bernthal quietly slid right past the Spider-Man couple, Zendaya and Tom Holland, to claim the ultimate global crown.

'Let's stop pretending that old-school Hollywood carries any real digital weight anymore. The Instagram leaderboard proves celebrity power has been reduced to a raw numbers game where actors operate as walking distribution monopolies. The fact that younger icons like Zendaya and Tom Holland build networks that completely out-scale legacy titans like Leonardo DiCaprio tells you everything about the current entertainment hierarchy. Audiences demand a 24/7 digital main character who converts their private life into a viral product launch. While Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson still sits on an unreachable mountain of legacy branding, this new wave proves that personal digital reach is the only real metric of power left in the business,' said Stanislava Savisheva, data analyst at PlayersTime.

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