Forbes just released their list of the highest paid actresses for the last year (from June, 2009 to June, 2010) and 46 year-old Oscar winner Sandra Bullock is at the top by a wide margin. Bullock earned $56 million, and much of that is due to an agreement she made for a percentage of the profits for The Blind Side in exchange for a lower salary. Bullock’s earnings were also buoyed by the success of The Proposal. Tied for second on the list is Reese Witherspoon, who earned $32 million for her upcoming films How Do You Know and Water for Elephants along with her gig as an Avon “brand ambassador.” Cameron Diaz also brought in $32 million for her take of the Shrek franchise along with Knight & Day. Jennifer Aniston is surprisingly fourth with $27 million despite the mediocre success of her films last year. (Don’t yell at me for that, I’m just paraphrasing the source.) And in fifth place is Sarah Jessica Parker, who took home $25 million for her perfume line and her part in driving a once-enjoyable franchise into the ground.

Where is Angelina Jolie, you ask? Well she’s tied with Julia Roberts for fifth and sixth place with $20 million. That’s pretty damn successful no matter how you look at it. (And many will look at it while chanting in a sing-song voice “Jen beat Angie. nya nya nya nya nya”). Here’s more from Forbes:

Sandra Bullock–$56 million
With two hit movies (The Proposal and The Blind Side) and an Oscar win, Bullock should have been sitting on top of the world. She is financially. With $56 million she’s the highest-earning actress. But a messy breakup with cheating husband Jesse James turned her into tabloid fodder. Bullock overcame adversity with news of an adoption and a return to public life at the MTV Movie Awards.

Reese Witherspoon–$32 million
Witherspoon’s face hasn’t been seen on the big screen since Christmas 2008, when she starred with Vince Vaughn in Four Christmases. She’ll return this holiday season with a new James Brooks comedy titled How Do You Know? co-starring Jack Nicholson, Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson.

Cameron Diaz–$32 million
Thanks to her work in the Shrek films Diaz has a nice, steady income, but she also gets big bucks to appear in romantic films like the action comedy Knight & Day, co-starring Tom Cruise. Diaz also stars with ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake as a foul-mouthed educator in the film Bad Teacher.

Jennifer Aniston–$27 million
Box-office stinkers like Love Happens and The Bounty Hunter can’t stop America’s sweetheart. Aniston still gets tons of press attention and decent-sized upfront paydays for romantic comedies like Just Go With It, co-starring Adam Sandler. Aniston also earns from Friends re-runs and a lucrative deal with Glaceau Smartwater.

Sarah Jessica Parker–$25 million
Between the TV series and movie franchise, Sex and the City will keep Parker in Manolos for years to come. The actress also has a successful line of perfumes that brought in $24 million the U.S. in 2009. Parker is now helping to design clothes for fashion label Halston.

Julia Roberts–$20 million
Roberts is no longer the draw she was in the days of movies like Erin Brockovich and Runaway Bride. Instead she is focusing on more personal movies like Eat Pray Love, based on the bestseller by Elizabeth Gilbert. Roberts will star opposite Tom Hanks for the second time in Larry Crowne, about a man reinventing himself.

Angelina Jolie–$20 million
The mom of six is a constant tabloid presence with 38 magazine covers in the last 12 months. She also makes movies. Jolie lost some ground this year because she didn’t have a new movie in our time frame. But she continues to cement her bankability with big thrillers like Salt and The Tourist, co-starring Johnny Depp.

Drew Barrymore–$15 million
Barrymore made her directorial debut in 2009 with the film Whip It. Unfortunately it didn’t whip up much business at the box office, earning only $17 million globally. Still, Barrymore is working hard to build a career behind the camera. She was the executive producer on the successful film He’s Just Not That Into You.

Meryl Streep–$13 million
At 60 Streep is still big at the box office. She had two hits in 2009 with Julie & Julia and It’s Complicated, which earned a collective $350 million at the global box office. She also earned a record 16th Oscar nomination for her work as chef Julia Child. The actress has no firm plans for her next film.

Kristen Stewart–$12 million
The 20-year-old Stewart is recognizable to teens around the world as Bella, the human caught between a vampire and a werewolf in the Twilight series. The movies have so far earned $1.6 billion at the box office and made Stewart a star. She stretched her wings this year with the rock biopic The Runaways, playing Joan Jett.

[From Forbes]

I love that Sandy is first and that Reese is second. I know Reese bugs a lot of people but I admire what a hard working little go-getter she is. She kept her head up during a very public divorce where her husband acted like a passive aggressive douche and came out richer and more successful for it. Ditto for Sandra Bullock. In terms of the projects Reese was already paid for, I hope that Water for Elephants is half as good as the book.

It doesn’t make sense to me how Julia Roberts and Sarah Jessica Parker made so much bank, but that’s because I can take or leave the pair of them. Their contributions to the field of entertainment last year were too meager to warrant that much dough. As for the “Jennifer made more than Angie” stories that are bound to follow, the whole triangle makes more sense to me now. You have two of the top five highest paid actresses with a personal beef with each other over another very popular highly paid movie star. Of course the tabloids are still milking that for all it’s worth.