Leonardo DiCaprio has had a career as diverse as any actor in the world. He started with relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies such as Critters 3 (1991), then became a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s as the lead actor in movies such as Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997), and later became a leading man in Hollywood blockbusters made by internationally renowned directors such as Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan.

DiCaprio began attracting the attention of producers, who cast him in small roles in television series such as Roseanne (1988) and The New Lassie (1989), but it wasn't until 1991 that he made his film debut in Critters 3 (1991), a low-budget horror movie. While Critters 3 did little to showcase his acting abilities, it helped him develop his show-reel and attract the attention of the people behind the hit sitcom Growing Pains (1985), in which he was cast in the "Cousin Oliver" role of a young homeless boy who moves in with the Seavers. While his stint on Growing Pains was very short, as the sitcom was axed the year after he joined, it helped bring him into the public's attention and, after the sitcom ended, he began auditioning for roles in which he would get the chance to prove his acting chops.

Leonardo took up a diverse range of roles in the early 1990s, including a mentally challenged youth in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), a young gunslinger in The Quick and the Dead (1995) and a drug addict in one of his most challenging roles to date, Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries (1995), a role which the late River Phoenix originally expressed interest in. While these diverse roles helped establish his reputation as an actor, it wasn't until his role as Romeo Montague in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) that he became a household name, a true movie star. The following year, DiCaprio starred in another movie about doomed lovers, Titanic (1997), which went on to beat all box office records held before then, as, at the time, Titanic became the highest grossing movie of all time, and cemented his reputation as a teen heartthrob. Following his work on Titanic, DiCaprio kept a low profile for a number of years, with roles in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) and the low-budget The Beach (2000) being some of his few notable roles during this period.

In 2002, he burst back into screens throughout the world with leading roles in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002), his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. With a current salary of $20 million a movie, DiCaprio is now one of the biggest movie stars in the world. However, he has not limited his professional career to just acting in movies, as DiCaprio is a committed environmentalist, who is actively involved in many environmental causes, and his commitment to this issue led to his involvement in The 11th Hour, a documentary movie about the state of the natural environment. As someone who has gone from small roles in television commercials to one of the most respected actors in the world, DiCaprio has had one of the most diverse careers in cinema. DiCaprio continued to defy conventions about the types of roles he would accept, and with his career now seeing him leading all-star casts in action thrillers such as The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), DiCaprio continues to wow audiences by refusing to conform to any cliché about actors.

In 2012, he played a mustache twirling villain in Django Unchained (2012), and then tragic literary character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby (2013) and Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).

DiCaprio is passionate about environmental and humanitarian causes, having donated $1,000,000 to earthquake relief efforts in 2010, the same year he contributed $1,000,000 to the Wildlife Conservation Society.