While stars like Tom Cruise, Matt Damon and Tom Holland have dominated the headlines throughout 2026, one actor has quietly put together the most commercially successful year in Hollywood. And we’re laughing thinking about how random the whole thing is but, between a record-breaking Christopher Nolanepic and the year’s biggest animated blockbuster, of all people, Benny Safdie has amassed a box office haul that no other performer has been able to match.
Yes, the man whose face you remember dripping with suntan lotion in front of an atomic explosion in Oppenheimer has scaled new box office heights, and is looking at well over $2 billion in takings — and we’re not even in August, yet! It’s even funnier because Safdie isn’t the leading man in any of the films. Instead, he’s become the year’s ultimate supporting player, with two hugely successful projects combining to give him an extraordinary run at the global box office. Now, given Spider-Man: Brand New Day comes out this week, Zendaya and Tom Holland, Safdie’s co-stars, will likely overtake him, while Zendaya definitely will when Dune 3 releases. But for now, let’s enjoy this.
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Collider Exclusive · Sci-Fi Personality Quiz Which Sci-Fi Hero Are You Most Like? Paul Atreides · Captain Kirk · Princess Leia · Ellen Ripley · Max Rockatansky
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Five iconic heroes. Five completely different ways of facing an impossible universe. One of them shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of refusing to back down. Eight questions will tell you which one.
🏜️Paul Atreides
🖖Capt. Kirk
✊Princess Leia
🔦Ellen Ripley
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🔥Max Rockatansky
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01
How do you lead when the stakes couldn’t be higher? The way you lead under pressure is the most honest thing about you.
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02
What is your greatest strength in a crisis? The quality that keeps you alive when everything else fails.
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03
What is the thing you’d sacrifice everything else for? Your deepest motivation is your truest compass.
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04
How do you relate to the people around you? Who you are to others under pressure is who you really are.
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05
You’re facing a threat that no one else believes is real. What do you do? How you respond when you’re the only one who sees it defines everything.
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06
What has your heroism cost you personally? Every hero pays. The question is what — and whether they’d pay it again.
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07
How do you feel about the rules of the world you’re in? Every hero has a relationship with the system. What’s yours?
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08
When everything is on the line, what keeps you going? The answer is the most honest thing about you.
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Your Hero Has Been Identified Your Sci-Fi Hero Is…
Your answers point to the iconic sci-fi hero who shares your instincts, your values, and your particular way of facing the impossible.
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Arrakis · Dune
Paul Atreides
You carry a weight most people would crumble under — the knowledge of what you’re capable of, and the burden of what you might have to become.
You see further ahead than others and you plan accordingly, even when the vision frightens you.
You are driven by loyalty to your people and a sense of destiny you didn’t ask for but can’t escape.
Paul Atreides is not simply a hero — he is someone who understands the cost of power and chooses to bear it anyway.
That gravity, that willingness to carry what others won’t, is exactly you.
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USS Enterprise · Star Trek
Captain Kirk
You lead with instinct, warmth, and an absolute refusal to accept a no-win scenario — because you’ve always believed there’s a third option nobody else has thought of yet.
You take the mission seriously without ever taking yourself too seriously.
Your crew would follow you anywhere, not because you demand it, but because you’ve earned it.
Kirk’s genius isn’t tactical — it’s human. He reads people, bends rules with purpose, and wills outcomes into existence through sheer conviction.
That combination of warmth, audacity, and relentless optimism is unmistakably yours.
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The Rebellion · Star Wars
Princess Leia
You are the kind of person who holds the line when everyone else is losing faith — not because you’re fearless, but because giving up simply isn’t something you’re capable of.
You lead through conviction. Your voice carries because your belief is unshakeable.
You gave up everything ordinary the moment you chose the cause, and you’ve never looked back.
Leia is not a supporting character in her own story — she is the moral centre of the entire rebellion.
That same fierce, principled, unbreakable core is what defines you.
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The Nostromo · Alien
Ellen Ripley
You are not reckless, not grandiose, and not particularly interested in being anyone’s hero — you just refuse to stop when it matters.
You see threats clearly, you document the truth even when no one listens, and when the time comes you handle it yourself.
Ripley’s heroism is earned, not performed. She doesn’t have a speech — she has a flamethrower and a plan.
You share her composure under the worst possible pressure, and her refusal to pretend the monster isn’t there.
When it counts, you don’t flinch. That’s everything.
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The Wasteland · Mad Max
Max Rockatansky
You have been through fire that would break most people — and what came out the other side is something the world underestimates at its peril.
You don’t ask for help, don’t need validation, and don’t wait for anyone to tell you the rules no longer apply.
Your loyalty, when it finally arrives, is absolute — but it’s earned in silence and tested in action, not in words.
Max is not a nihilist. He is someone who lost everything and found, against his will, that he still has something worth protecting.
That bruised, stubborn, ultimately human core is exactly yours.
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What Movies Is Benny Safdie in?
Safdie kicked off the year by voicing Bowser Jr. in The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, which has surpassed $1 billion worldwide to become one of 2026’s biggest releases, and followed it up as the King of Auramaxxing Mycenae, Agamemnon, in The Odyssey, which is now almost guaranteed to pass a billion, having almost reached $700 million worldwide in just its second weekend.
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Safdie first rose to prominence alongside his brother Josh Safdie, directing acclaimed films including Good Time and Uncut Gems. In recent years, however, he’s increasingly become one of Hollywood’s most sought-after character actors, earning praise for performances in Oppenheimer, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. and now The Odyssey.
With The Odyssey continuing to dominate cinemas and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie already sitting among the biggest hits of the year, Safdie’s remarkable 2026 box office record may prove difficult for anyone else to catch before the year is out. This is one of those unusual cases where an actor you wouldn’t expect is actually the highest grossing — Zoe Saldaña is regularly cited on these lists thanks to her work in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but also James Cameron‘s Avatar films, while Samuel L. Jackson‘s supporting role as Nick Fury in the MCU has seen him become the highest-grossing actor of all time in the past.
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