It is baffling to see that the most pirated movies are the very movies that work best on the big screen. Movie piracy continues to be an issue, and based on the list of most pirated movies, those who are opting not to pay for their entertainment prefer the big blockbuster movies, Avatar topping the list with a whopping 21 million downloads.

Inspired by Netflix posting their most rented movies, TorrentFreak.com compiled a similar list for BitTorrent downloads. Here are the Top 5:

1 Avatar (2009) 21 million
2 The Dark Knight (2008) 19 million
3 Transformers (2007) 19 million
4 Inception (2010) 18 million
5 The Hangover (2009) 17 million

As TorrentFreak points out, the films on the list did pretty well in the box office, despite the piracy, however the number of downloads suggests that the films likely would have done even better if people weren’t choosing to download them illegally.

Only two of the Top 10 films on the list are something other than an action/adventure film (The Hangover and The Departed). While all of the films are popular and did well at the box office, they’re also the kinds of movies you’d want to see on the big screen, rather than wait to rent, let along settle for a lesser-quality version by downloading illegally.

While it’s likely that at least some of those who downloaded a pirated copy of Avatar did actually see the film in the theater first, millions of downloaders probably saw the movie for the first time on their computer. Even if the downloaded version of the film were near-DVD quality, Avatar will never be as good as it was seeing it for the first time on the big screen in 3D. The same applies to most of the other movies on the list. These are exactly the kind of movies to see in the theater.