Who Is the King of Memorial Day Weekend Movies? We Ranked the Biggest Stars | Rotten Tomatoes
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Who Is the King of Memorial Day Weekend Movies? We Ranked the Biggest Stars
Using box office numbers, Rotten Tomatoes scores, and cultural impact, we ranked Hollywood’s biggest Memorial Day weekend movie stars from the last 50 years.
by
Ryan Fujitani<br>| May 21, 2026
TAGGED AS: blockbusters, movies
Memorial Day weekend is widely considered the start of the summer movie season, but that might never have happened if Congress hadn’t passed an act in 1968 to permanently move the Memorial Day holiday (as well as Washington’s birthday and Columbus Day) to a Monday. When the Memorial Day three-day weekend was born, it opened the door for Memorial Day weekend movies to become a thing, which is exactly what happened less than a decade later.
In 1975, an up-and-coming Steven Spielberg unleashed what we now recognize as the first summer blockbuster, Jaws, proving that the summer months could be just as big for Hollywood, if not bigger, than the holiday season. And just two years after that, one of Spielberg’s buddies, George Lucas, took advantage of the Memorial Day weekend to gift the world Star Wars (later renamed A New Hope), informally signaling the start of the summer movie season for generations to follow.
(Photo by ©20th Century Fox Film Corp./courtesy Everett Collection)
With almost five decades of Memorial Day movies to look back upon, we decided to dig into the data to see if any trends emerged, and from a pool of more than 200 movies, we noticed a number of actors have blessed the holiday with some of the biggest movies of all time (and a few smaller ones). To crown the true king of Memorial Day weekend, we ranked Hollywood’s biggest stars who have led multiple Memorial Day films over the past five decades using box office numbers, Tomatometer and Popcornmeter scores, and the cultural significance of each film at release and beyond.
These are the actors who have defined Memorial Day weekend moviegoing over the last 50 years.
Notable Mentions
Before we get to the juicy stuff, it’s worth highlighting a few fun things we learned as we sifted through the 200+ films released on Memorial Day weekend since 1977.
The Star Wars franchise not only inaugurated the concept of the Memorial Day weekend blockbuster release with its first film, it has made the holiday weekend its home. The entire original trilogy (Episodes IV, V, and VI), 2018’s Solo: A Star Wars Story, and this week’s The Mandalorian and Grogu are all Memorial Day releases. What’s more, if the three films of the Prequel Trilogy (Episodes I, II, and III) had opened just a week later, they also would have been Memorial Day releases.
Outside of Star Wars, though, a number of other franchises have also taken advantage of the holiday. The Indiana Jones, Mission: Impossible, and X-Men franchises all had three Memorial Day releases, while Poltergeist, Alien, The Hangover, Rambo, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Beverly Hills Cop all had two.
(Photo by ©Disney)
Disney used Memorial Day weekends to open three of its live-action remakes of animated classics: Aladdin (2019), The Little Mermaid (2023), and Lilo & Stitch (2025). And while it technically isn’t a remake, 2021’s live-action Cruella, starring Emma Stone as the 101 Dalmatians villain, also came out on Memorial Day weekend.
And speaking of Cruella, firmly female-led movies have been few and far between, making up less than a quarter of all the films released during the Memorial Day corridor. Ridley Scott provided a pair of classics in Alien and Thelma & Louise, alongside films like Notting Hill, Enough, Saved!, Sex and the City 2, Booksmart, and A Quiet Place Part II. The Memorial Day weekend — and, truthfully, most of Hollywood’s history until recently — has been dominated by leading men. Which brings us to the five actors whose Memorial Day weekend movies outshine all the rest.
5. Will Smith
Total Domestic Box Office Gross (Adjusted for Inflation): $819,429,052
•
32%
29%
Made in America
(1993)
•
67%
70%
Men in Black 3
(2012)
•
57%
89%
Aladdin
(2019)
First, let’s get the obvious out of the way: Made in America was admittedly not a Will Smith vehicle. It’s probably best remembered — if it’s remembered at all — as the movie that sparked an affair between stars Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg that very publicly ended the former’s marriage. But Smith did, of course, headline both Men in Black 3 and Disney’s live-action remake of Aladdin. MIB3 was the highest-grossing of its franchise, pairing Smith with Josh Brolin, whose uncanny impression of a young Tommy Lee Jones became a highlight of the film. And say what you will about the Disney remakes, but Aladdin’s Popcornmeter and opening weekend box office totals both rank...