Leonardo DiCaprio is the top earning actor this year according to Forbes. DiCaprio topped the list with his movies which made $1.1 billion at the global box office.

While his movies lags in this year's award season, DiCaprio is reaping financial rewards by starring at the commercially successful Inception and Shutter Island this year which made it to the Top 15 highest earning movies in 2010.

"For the sake of this list, we're only looking at box office gross. We looked at the earnings for the top films of the year and credited each star the entire box office. So if an actor starred in two big movies (like DiCaprio did) he got credit for both. We did not include animated films, although they were some of the top-earning of the year, because the stars aren't really the big draw for those films," explained Dorothy Pomerantz of Forbes.

The Christopher Nolan-directed film Inception is the third highest earning movie for this year, raking in $825 million, without the benefit of high priced 3D tickets. Shutter Island raked in $300 million, which made it the highest grossing film for director Martin Scorsese.

DiCaprio earned $50 million from Inception alone, with revenues from the DVD release and television deals yet to be counted in. Much of his earnings from Inception comes from the first-dollar points deal he made for the movie, which was risky but obviously paid off for DiCaprio.

DiCaprio beat Alice in Wonderland stars Mia Wasikowska and Johnny Depp, Iron Man 2's Robert Downey Jr. , and Harry Potter actor Daniel Radcliffe. Leonardo will next be seen in the biopic of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, in the lead role. The movie is set to be directed by Clint Eastwood.