What do you get for the man who has everything? Unfortunately, we're not besties with Leo DiCaprio (yet) and don't need to dwell on that good problem. Because shopping for cool birthday gifts is out of the question, we took on the only task available to us: ranking every year of existence for a living legend whose life has been more than semi-charmed since before he could legally drink. This is the guy who had (probably) the best celebrity profile of all time written about him and his epically titled entourage when he was just 24.
And yet it would be disingenuous to say that Leo peaked in '98. The Prince of the City turned god of the game has more or less been coasting on the highest wave since he froze to death for love, with a borderline airtight résumé his fellow Hollywood heartthrobs would kill for—his worst years are your best dream. The voting body of the Academy Awards have often failed to duly recognize his greatness, but that's what we're here for.
Salute on turning the big four-two, Leo. In honor of the beginning of what can potentially be a better, richer Clooney Phase™ than Clooney himself enjoyed, Complex has ranked every year of Leo's life, from "broke-up-with-my-latest-model-girlfriend" worst to "I'm-king-of-the-world" best.
2003
2011
1980
2001
2005
1999
1984
1979
2015
1985
2007
1975
1982
1992
Turns: 18
Big moment: Leo turns down Hocus Pocus
First, the bad. Our boy turned down the lead role in Hocus Pocus. Obviously it all worked out—Leo was holding out in hopes of landing a role in a little movie called What's Eating Gilbert Grape and no one at the New York Times was tripping over themselves to profile Omri Katz. (Imagine if the god had been the one to light the black flame candle.) In other real-actor news, LDC got handpicked by Lord De Niro to star alongside him in the film adaptation of Tobias Wolff's A1 memoir This Boy's Life. The future was right there in Leo's first interview ever, a chat with a reporter doing profiles for that movie:
Interviewer: Good luck becoming a big star.
DiCaprio: Who knows? It could or could not happen. It’s one of those things. But hopefully I’ll be an actor, which is what I’m most concerned about. Not a star.
He's not a star. Somebody lied. Leo is MMG. —Frazier Tharpe