Wilson loops in large $N$ field theories

We propose a method to calculate the expectation values of an operator similar to the Wilson loop in the large $N$ limit of field theories. We consider ${\cal N} =4 $ 3+1 dimensional super-Yang-Mills. The prescription involves calculating the area of a fundamental string worldsheet in certain supergravity backgrounds. We also consider the case of coincident M-theory fivebranes where one is lead to calculating the area of M-theory two-branes. We briefly discuss the computation for 2+1 dimensional super-Yang-Mills with sixteen supercharges which is non-conformal. In all these cases we calculate the energy of quark-antiquark pair.