Movie piracy is a touchy subject. Some claim it’s a viewer’s right to share media, or that their downloads hardly affect the industry as they ‘only download the movies they kinda want to see and still pay for the ones they really want to watch’. Others blame piracy for a slow but sure demise of the film industry and label it as blatant stealing.
Whatever your thoughts, it is interesting to see the figures. So below we have the list of top 20 pirated movies of the year for you!
Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET and Disney’s FROZEN were the two most-pirated movies for 2014, with each flick downloaded about 30 million times by torrent users worldwide.
GRAVITY followed with 29.4 million downloads by pirates, then THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (27.6 million) and Marvel’s THOR: THE DARK WORLD (25.7 million). The figures were compiled and released by piracy-tracking firm Excipio, who reportedly collected the data for the period between Jan. 1 and Dec. 23, 2014.
Here is their full list of top 20 pirated movies of the year ranked by number of downloads, followed by the studio and original theatrical release date:
1. “The Wolf of Wall Street”: 30.035 million (Paramount, Dec. 25, 2013)
2. “Frozen”: 29.919 million (Disney, Nov. 27, 2013)
3. “RoboCop”*: 29.879 million (MGM, Feb. 12, 2014; and Orion, July 17, 1987)
4. “Gravity”: 29.357 million (Warner Bros., Oct. 4, 2013)
5. “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”: 27.627 million (Warner Bros., Dec. 13, 2013)
6. “Thor: The Dark World”: 25.749 million (Disney/Marvel, Nov. 8, 2013)
7. “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”: 25.628 million (Disney/Marvel, April 4, 2014)
8. “The Legend of Hercules”: 25.137 million (Summit, Jan. 10, 2014)
9. “X-Men: Days of Future Past”: 24.380 million (20th Century Fox, May 23, 2014)
10. “12 Years a Slave”: 23.653 million (Fox Searchlight, Oct. 18, 2013)
11. “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire”: 23.543 million (Lionsgate, Nov. 22, 2013)
12. “American Hustle”: 23.143 million (Sony/Columbia, Dec. 13, 2013)
13. “300: Rise of an Empire”: 23.096 million (Warner Bros., March 7, 2014)
14. “Transformers: Age of Extinction”: 21.65 million (Paramount, June 27, 2014)
15. “Godzilla”: 20.956 million (Warner Bros., May 16, 2014)
16. “Noah”: 20.334 million (Paramount, March 28, 2014)
17. “Divergent”: 20.312 million (Lionsgate, March 21, 2014)
18. “Edge of Tomorrow”: 20.299 million (Warner Bros., June 6, 2014)
19. “Captain Phillips”: 19.817 million (Sony/Columbia, Oct. 11, 2013)
20. “Lone Survivor”: 19.130 million (Universal, Dec. 25, 2013)
* Combines data for both 1987 and 2014 versions as the same title effected tracking abilities.
Source: Excipio