Sarah Jessica Parker and Angelina Jolie ranked Hollywood's richest women

Angelina Jolie and Sarah Jessica Parker have topped Forbes magazine's annual list of the highest paid female actors with estimated earnings of $30m (£18.6m) a year.

Familiar figures such as Jennifer Aniston ($28m), Reese Witherspoon (also $28m) and Julia Roberts ($20m) complete the top five, but there is room in the top 10 for fresher faces. Kristen Stewart is at No 6 with $20m, thanks to the success of the Twilight films, while Katherine Heigl finds herself at No 7 following paydays for turkeys such as Killers and The Ugly Truth and Cameron Diaz and Sandra Bullock round out the top 10 with $18m and $15m respectively.

Forbes conducted its research for the period between May 2010 and May 2011. Jolie is believed to be on top mainly because two of her latest films, Salt and the Tourist performed well in the box office.

Jessica Parker on the other hand, still financially greatly benefits from the worldwide broadcasts of Sex and the City reruns and the latest installation of the series on big screen pulled in a respectable $290m.

While they should not be worried financially for a while, the women topping the Forbes rank are still left to trail after their male counterparts, proving that even in Hollywood men tend to be higher paid than woman. The men's list, which was published in September, announced Johnny Depp as topping the ranking with a staggering $75m in annual earnings while actors Ben Stiller ($53m), Tom Hanks ($45m) and Adam Sandler ($40m) all earned more than Jolie.