Top 15 Tallest Actors of All Time

Kareem abdul jabbar game of death cropped processed by imagy

15. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – 7 ft 2 in | 2.18 m

Most people meet Kareem on a basketball court first, but film history remembers him for that towering, surreal fight sequence with Bruce Lee in Game of Death. The height isn’t just trivia there – it’s the entire point of the scene, turning the matchup into a visual gag and a genuine challenge at the same time. Kareem moves with a calm, almost amused confidence, like he knows the camera can’t look away from the size difference. It’s a rare case where a celebrity cameo becomes iconic on its own, and his stature is the special effect. | © Golden Harvest

Kevin Peter Hall cropped processed by imagy

14. Kevin Peter Hall – 7 ft 2 in | 2.18 m

Behind the alien dread of Predator is a human performer doing the physical storytelling, and Kevin Peter Hall is a huge reason the creature feels like an actual hunter, not a rubber suit. His height and build give the Predator that unsettling “it’s right behind you” presence even when the character barely moves. What’s especially impressive is how he makes the silhouette readable – predatory posture, deliberate steps, a sense of intelligence in the body language. A lot of movie monsters become famous for their design; Hall helped make this one famous for the way it stalks. | © 20th Century Fox

Peter mayhew chewbacca cropped processed by imagy

13. Peter Mayhew – 7 ft 3 in | 2.21 m

You can’t fake the warmth and weight of Chewbacca – those long strides, the way he fills the frame next to smugglers and princesses, the gentle-giant vibe that keeps the character lovable instead of scary. Peter Mayhew’s height did the obvious job (making Chewie feel massive), but the real magic was the performance inside the fur where he had to communicate through movement and sound. He made a non-human character feel like the most loyal friend in the room, which is harder than it looks. When people talk about the heart of the original trilogy, they’re often talking about the character he embodied. | © Lucasfilm

André the giant princess bride cropped processed by imagy

12. André the Giant – 7 ft 4 in | 2.24 m

There’s a reason Fezzik never feels like a generic “big guy” sidekick: he’s intimidating on arrival, then instantly disarming once you see how gentle he is. André’s size makes the character a walking punchline and a walking threat, but the movie lets him be tender, loyal, and quietly hilarious – especially in The Princess Bride where every scene with him becomes a contrast between appearance and personality. He turns a towering frame into something oddly comforting, like a bodyguard who’d rather be a poet. It’s one of the best examples of height being used for character, not just spectacle. | © Act III Communications

Boban marjanovic john wick 3 cropped processed by imagy

11. Boban Marjanović – 7 ft 4 in | 2.24 m

If you’ve seen the library fight in John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, you’ve seen why Boban’s height is basically a plot device. He plays Ernest like a polite wall of muscle – massive reach, calm demeanor, then sudden chaos when the punches start flying. The scene works because the film treats him like a real obstacle rather than a joke, forcing Wick to fight smarter instead of just faster. For a non-actor cameo, Boban commits to the physicality in a way that makes the moment memorable, and his size does the rest. | © Thunder Road Films

Matthew Mc Grory big fish cropped processed by imagy

10. Matthew McGrory – 7 ft 6 in | 2.29 m

Tim Burton knew exactly what he was doing when he put Matthew McGrory on screen: you feel the scale before you even process the scene. In Big Fish, his Karl the Giant isn’t played for cheap shock – McGrory gives him a gentle, oddly tender presence that turns height into character instead of a gimmick. He also showed the other side of that physical impact in House of 1000 Corpses as Tiny Firefly, where the sheer size becomes unsettling without him needing to do much at all. The contrast is why he stuck with audiences: the same frame could read as warm or threatening depending on the story. | © Columbia Pictures

Jack Earle Jack and the Beanstalk cropped processed by imagy

9. Jack Earle – 7 ft 6 in | 2.29 m

Early Hollywood loved spectacle, and Jack Earle’s height made him an instant “storybook giant” on camera in Jack and the Beanstalk. But his real-life story is almost stranger than the films: after an on-set accident, doctors discovered a pituitary tumor that explained his extraordinary growth. That detail changed how people remembered him – less a novelty, more a case of a performer navigating a body that came with serious health consequences. When you watch his screen appearances now, it’s hard not to see the era’s fairy-tale framing colliding with something very real. | © Century Film

Lock Martin The Day the Earth Stood Still cropped processed by imagy

8. Lock Martin – 7 ft 7 in | 2.31 m

Some sci-fi icons are born from dialogue and backstory; Gort is born from pure presence. Lock Martin’s height is the reason the robot in The Day the Earth Stood Still feels like a walking warning sign – silent, rigid, and instantly dominant in a frame full of ordinary humans. The suit did the rest, but the silhouette is what sells it: a figure that doesn’t need to threaten, because it looks like it could end the argument by moving one step forward. It’s classic “show, don’t tell” casting. | © 20th Century Fox

7. Gheorghe Mureșan – 7 ft 7 in | 2.31 m

You don’t cast an NBA giant unless you want the camera to react, and My Giant is built around that simple fact. Gheorghe Mureșan plays a gentle, awkward presence opposite Billy Crystal, and the humor works because it’s not just “look how tall he is” – it’s how everyone else adjusts around him, physically and socially. There’s also a neat bit of trivia baked into the project’s DNA: the story idea was inspired by Crystal’s real friendship with André the Giant, so Mureșan’s casting feels like a deliberate echo. The film’s heart comes from treating the “giant” as a person first. | © Castle Rock Entertainment

Image 2026 02 07 180421548 cropped processed by imagy

6. Paul Sturgess – 7 ft 7.26 in | 2.31 m

Modern blockbusters still love practical scale, and Paul Sturgess is the kind of performer who makes a set look smaller just by standing in it. One of his most visible high-profile credits is Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, where sheer height becomes a filmmaking tool – instant otherness, instant intimidation, no camera trick required. Guinness has measured him at 231.8 cm, which helps explain why productions keep calling when they need a “real giant” rather than a digital approximation. He’s proof that physical uniqueness can be a career lane all its own. | © Hot Sauce TV

5. Neil Fingleton – 7 ft 7.56 in | 2.33 m

There’s a split-second in X-Men: First Class where the room’s energy shifts, and it’s not because someone delivers a killer line – it’s because Neil Fingleton simply exists in the frame like a human wall. Before the acting gigs, he’d already lived a whole other life as a basketball pro, but on set his height became a practical special effect directors didn’t have to fake. Even when he’s playing a bodyguard type, the intimidation reads instantly, the kind that sells a scene without overplaying it. That same physicality later carried him into bigger genre work (including giants and heavily costumed roles), where scale is the story. | © HBO

Jóhann K Pétursson cropped processed by imagy

4. Jóhann K. Pétursson – 7 ft 8 in | 2.34 m

Long before “motion capture” became a buzzword, Jóhann K. Pétursson’s size was the kind of thing movies used like a thunderclap: undeniable, slightly unreal, and impossible to ignore. He toured as a circus attraction under names like “the Viking Giant,” but he also stepped into film work – one of the better-known examples being Prehistoric Women, where that towering silhouette fits the era’s taste for pulp adventure and larger-than-life figures. What makes his story stick isn’t just the height; it’s how much of his life had to be engineered around it, from custom living spaces to the sheer logistics of travel. The screen roles were brief, but the presence was never small. | © Jóhann K. Pétursson

3. Sun Mingming – 7 ft 9 in | 2.36 m

If you’ve ever watched Rush Hour 3 and thought, “Wait… who is that absolute tower of a man in the fight scene?” – that’s Sun Mingming. He wasn’t just tall; he was a professional basketball player whose body became headline news, and his path included serious medical hurdles before he could even fully chase the career he wanted. On screen, the movie leans into his scale for comedy and spectacle, but what’s memorable is how effortlessly he moves for someone his size – the choreography works because he’s not treated like a statue. He’s one of those rare cases where audiences recognize the “giant” instantly even if they don’t know his name yet. | © New Line Cinema

Jorge González gigante cropped processed by imagy

2. Jorge González – 8 ft 0 in | 2.44 m

Anyone who saw Jorge González in action understood the appeal immediately: he looked like someone a normal camera lens shouldn’t be able to contain. He bounced between sports and pro wrestling fame, but he also turned up in TV-film territory – including the Thunder in Paradise specials, where he’s used exactly the way you’d expect: as an overwhelming obstacle who makes the heroes look tiny by comparison. The wild part is that his billed height became part of the myth-making, while the real-life cost of his health issues was anything but myth. Even in short appearances, he had that “how is this person real?” effect that casting directors chase. | © WWE

Max Palmer Invaders from Mars cropped processed by imagy

1. Max Palmer – 8 ft 2 in | 2.49 m

Max Palmer’s story has that classic old-Hollywood oddity to it: a man so tall he basically gets hired for being physically impossible, then winds up floating through movies and variety TV before wrestling crowds turned him into a legend. One of his early film credits is Invaders from Mars, where he’s part of that eerie 1950s sci-fi machinery – the kind of movie that loved uncanny bodies and unsettling silhouettes. Later, he even popped up decades afterward in Stone, which is a pretty sharp reminder that “giant casting” didn’t disappear; it just changed genres. Palmer wasn’t chasing leading-man roles – he was a walking visual hook, and filmmakers knew it. | © National Pictures Corp.