After his first big screen film, the mildly successful Critters 3, DiCaprio gained recognition for his role in the 1993 This Boy’s Life, a film based on the memoir of Tobias Wolff. The film, which starred DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, was named runner-up for Best Supporting Actor by both the New York Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics.

The same year, DiCaprio delivered a convincing performance as a mentally challenged boy in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. The film, which also starred Johnny Depp, garnered Leo an Academy Award nomination. After playing the ill-fated Romeo in a Shakespeare remake, Leo would achieve worldwide super-stardom through his performance the wildly successful Titanic.

His role as the poor, artistic Jack Dawson who falls in love with a higher class passenger played by Kate Winslet, is probably his best-known. Titanic was the highest grossing film ever. It won eleven Academy Awards and proclaimed Leo a star across the globe.

This was the peak of his popularity, and his face could be seen on the covers of scores of magazines, including Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone. Since DiCaprio’s role as Jack Dawson, Leo has starred in several successful films, including The Beach, Catch Me if You Can, Gangs of New York, and The Aviator, in which he played the eccentric Howard Hughes. The films featured A-list actors Tom Hanks and Daniel Day Lewis, and boasted big name directors Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese. Leo recently released two more films; he had a starring role in The Departed, directed by Scorsese and also starring Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, and Mark Wahlberg; and a starring role in The Blood Diamond.

In 2000, it appeared that Leo might be ready to change his ways and settle down with Brazilian fashion model Gisele Bundchen. They dated for five years before splitting in 2005. Following the break up DiCaprio began dating Israeli model Bar Refaeli, but it remains to be seen whether she will be the one to finally tame the wild and gorgeous DiCaprio as their relationship is also on and off.

DiCaprio’s career went from strength to strength after he landed the role of Danny Archer in the 2006 movie Blood Diamond which also starred Jennifer Connelly and again in 2006 in his role as Billy Costigan in The Departed which saw him playing alongside veteran actor Jack Nicholson.