Lester Cohen/WireImage.comThank goodness for Guinness—without it, we'd have to rely on Forbes' constantly churned-out star rankings for Hollywood's most up-to-date superlatives.
The Guinness World Records 2009 is out with the latest batch of milestone markers, and, as with seemingly every other Tinseltown-skewing list out there, the phenomenon that is Brangelina has come out tops.
Not to be outdone, Britney Spears, Oprah Winfrey, Miley Cyrus and even Amy Winehouse hit the record books this year, albeit somewhat surprisingly in one or two cases, for good behavior.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have been crowned this year's Most Powerful Actor and Actress, knocking Tom Cruise off his four-year perch and commandeering the record away from Jennifer Aniston, who shared last year's title with Jolie.
The dominant Power couple earned their latest stripe based on Guinness' newly employed rating system, taking into account Google, Yahoo and Factiva searches, IMDbPro news stories, "Star Meter" readings and Forbes earnings lists.
Meanwhile, Spears' comeback continues in earnest as she replaces former party pal Paris Hilton to reclaim her 2007 title as the Most Searched Person on the Internet—of course, the headlines that earned Spears the hits weren't necessarily as flattering as the accolade, but that's neither here nor there.
Other notable, and in some cases extremely genre-specific, record setters:
- Winfrey secured her place in the record books for having the Highest Annual Earnings by a TV Talk Show Host, banking more than $225 million last year.
- Cyrus' Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour became the Highest Grossing Movie of a Music Tour, raking in $53.4 million in its first two weeks out. Something for the Jonas Brothers to strive for.
- American Idol was named the Most Watched Current TV Show in the USA. Good thing they're not trying to mess with a winning formula.
- Heroes became the year's Most Downloaded TV Show, with its pop culture-permeating tag line of "Save the cheerleader, save the world," helping result in 2,439,154 downloads.
- On the back of the success of Back to Black, Winehouse set a new record for Most Grammy Awards Won by a British Female Act, earning five of the six nods she was up for.
- Simon Cowell protégée Leona Lewis doubled her pleasure, earning records for Bestselling Debut Album in the U.K. in One Week by a Female, as well as taking home the inaugural record of Fastest Selling Album to Reach 1 Million Copies in the U.K. by a Female Artist for Spirit.
- Paul McCartney was crowned the Most Successful Songwriter of All Time, with 91 of his 188 charted records reaching the top 10, 33 of which logged time at No. 1. The onetime Beatle has spent 1,662 weeks of his career on the album charts.
The 2009 edition of the Guinness World Records is out Sept. 17.