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Wolf of Wall Street tops list of 2014's most pirated movies

The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's dark comedy about a stock market swindler was the preferred movie of internet thieves this year.

Martin Scorsese's dark comedy was downloaded 30 million times, according to piracy tracking firm Excipio

CBC News ·
The Wolf of Wall Street, starring Jonah Hill, left, and Leonardo DiCaprio, follows the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of Jordan Belfort, a crooked stockbroker who defrauded investors of millions. ( Mary Cybulski/Paramount Pictures/Red Granite Pictures/AP)

The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin Scorsese's dark comedy about a stock market swindler, tops a list of the most pirated movies of 2014.

The movie, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, was illegally downloaded about 30 million times by torrent users this year, according to piracy tracking company Excipio and quoted in Variety.

Disney's smash hit, Frozen, came in a close second with 29.919 million downloads — despite worldwide sales that exceed $1.2 billion dollars US, according industry website Box Office Mojo.

The list, complied between Jan. 1 and Dec. 23 of this year, includes critical and box office successes of 2013 and 2014, with a notable exception.

RoboCop (2014) is a PG-rated rehash of the 1987 R-rated original. (Kerry Hayes/Sony/Columbia Pictures/Associated Press)

MGM's RoboCop complicated the tally because the studio's 2014 reboot shares the same title as the 1987 original. Torrent site users downloaded both movies a combined 29.879 million times, but it is not clear how the numbers break down for the individual films.

At the box office, the most recent version of the sci-fi shoot 'em up has grossed more than $242 million worldwide.

Hercules, starring Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson earned $243 million at the global box office since July, but more pirates downloaded the rival epic The Legend of Hercules. (Paramount Pictures)
​Also confusing the statistics were duplicate titles for the the action epics The Legend of Hercules starring Kellan Lutz and Hercules starring Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson.

Excipio explained that the latter movie was not as popular among internet thieves than the former, despite clobbering it at the global box office. (In theatres, The Legend of Hercules earned $61.2 million and Hercules took in $243.3 million.)

So, what else were sticky-fingered torrent site users stealing this year? 

Here's the 20 top pirated movies of 2014, ranked by downloads:

  1. The Wolf of Wall Street, 30.035 million 
  2. Frozen, 29.919 million 
  3. RoboCop, 29.879 million 
  4. Gravity, 29.357 million
  5. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, 27.627 million 
  6. Thor: The Dark World, 25.749 million 
  7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 25.628 million
  8. The Legend of Hercules, 25.137 million
  9. X-Men: Days of Future Past, 24.380 million
  10. 12 Years a Slave, 23.653 million
  11. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, 23.543 million
  12. American Hustle, 23.143 million
  13.  300: Rise of an Empire, 23.096 million 
  14. Transformers Age of Extinction, 21.65 million
  15. Godzilla, 20.956 million
  16. Noah, 20.334 million
  17. Divergent, 20.312 million
  18. Edge of Tomorrow, 20.299 million
  19. Captain Phillips, 19.817 million 
  20. Lone Survivor, 19.130 million

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