For leading men in the world of Hollywood, showbiz, and TV, a killer moustache can complete a famous look and make it truly iconic.
Would Friends be the same if Richard Burke hadn’t been blessed with Tom Selleck’s iconic nose neighbour? Would Ned Flanders be the same without his?
Charlie Chaplin had a career that lasted 75 years but his most famous looks come from his black tash era. Sacha Baron Cohen’s character Borat inspired Halloween costumes for decades.
And the joy of having one isn’t just limited to film and TV either, with rockstars like Freddie Mercury, wrestlers like Hulk Hogan, and legendary artists like Salvador Dali all sporting iconic facial hair styles of their own.
It’s also Movember season, which means even ordinary men around the world aregrowing their best ‘staches to raise as much money as they can for charity.
But when it comes to the most famous moustaches in the world right now, whose stands out among the crowd for being the biggest, bushiest, and best?
Henry Cavill
On a Reddit forum dedicated to Man of Steel actor Henry Cavill, a popular post from user @KendraKiss asks: ‘The Moustache Era. Henry at his finest?’
The picture features Henry Cavill appearing at various red carpet events, and in various roles, sporting the moustache he wore handsomely during the mid-2010s.
In fact, Henry’s moustache was so popular and attracted so much attention that superhero fans noticed immediately when it had been CGI-edited out of a film he’d starred in.
While filming for 2017’s Justice League, Henry had also been working on his role in Mission: Impossible – Fallout, leaving filmmakers with no choice but to airbrush his top lip.
Despite that controversy being seven years ago, people have still Googled Henry Cavill’s moustache over 280,000 times in 2024 alone.
Travis Kelce
Being Taylor Swift’s boyfriend arguably puts Travis Kelce in the conversation for being the most famous man on the planet – just by association.
The Kansas City NFL player and three-time Super Bowl winner, 35, started sporting a very prominent moustache at the start of the NFL regular season in September.
It attracted significant media attention as Travis said he felt like a ‘different character’ – the moustache seems to have been grown as a tribute to his team coach Andy Reid’s own push broom.
There’s not much known about how his partner Taylor Swift feels about it, but we can’t imagine Travis could ever do too much to upset his popstar sweetheart.
His moustache has now been Googled almost 140,000 times in the last 11 months, with the majority of that activity coming in just the last 12 weeks.
Tom Selleck
If this poll had been taken 30 years ago, Tom Selleck likely would have emerged at the very top of the list. Try and picture Tom Selleck without a moustache!
Best known to audiences as Thomas Magnum from 1980s series Magnum PI, Tom has sported that moustache in almost all his most famous roles on TV.
It was in the mid-1990s that he joined the cast of Friends as Richard Burke, Monica’s much older boyfriend during the hugely popular second season.
Monica’s eventual boyfriend and husband Chandler (Matthew Perry) even grew his own moustache to be like Richard – he was just that cool!
In season three, Richard briefly returns, having shaved his moustache. By the time of another brief return in season six, he’s grown it back: ‘Well, my nose got lonely.’
Tom’s moustache has still been searched for almost 70,000 times since January, with his old TV roles still being remembered for that famous mustachioed look.
Miles Teller
Top Gun: Maverick and Whiplash star Miles Teller famously grew a pretty stellar moustache when he starred opposite Tom Cruise in the sequel to the 1986 Hollywood classic.
His moustache proved to be so popular, and contributed so much to his look in the film, that YouTube tutorials on how to get his moustache even exist!
Almost 45,000 people Googled his moustache, which Miles wore for the role of Bradley ‘Rooster’ Bradshaw – Tom Cruise’s Pete ‘Maverick’ Mitchell takes him under his wing.
In the film, Rooster is the son of Nick ‘Goose’ Bradshaw, who had been played by Anthony Edwards. Goose tragically dies before the end of the original movie.
Goose’s defining feature was definitely his blonde moustache – and his legacy was clearly carried on by his son in the film that made over £1billion worldwide in 2022.
Brad Pitt
Since the beginning of Brad Pitt’s film career, polls featuring the best hair, best looks, best actors, best fashion, etc. have almost always featured him.
It’s no surprise, therefore, that Brad finds himself near the top of this ‘most famous moustaches’ poll, with more than 40,000 searches so far this year.
Now, Brad has sported a moustache at several points during his career, but his most famous tash has to surely be Lt. Aldo Raine’s from Inglorious Basterds?
The Quentin Tarantino movie has lived long in the memory of those who’ve seen it, with the war film starring Brad as a black-ops commander intent on killing Nazis.
The full Moustache top 10
- Johnny Depp – 37,600
- Chris Evans – 36,200
- Justin Bieber – 31,700
- Post Malone – 30,800
- Jacob Elordi – 17,000
While it wasn’t enough for them to reach the top five, the likes of Johnny Depp, Chris Evans, Justin Bieber, Post Malone, and Jacob Elordi all sported moustaches this year that saw thousands of people look them up.