MUMBAI: According to a study by TorrentFreak, James Cameron‘s 3-D blockbuster Avatar has been the most pirated film in the history of Hollywood.

The film has been downloaded some 21 million times since it was released in 2009.

It may be remembered that Cameron once touted 3D filmmaking as the entertainment industry‘s best hope for combating piracy, but there has been no respite and the 3D spectacle could not escape the wrath of torrent sites, it is said.

Avatar‘s 21 million downloads beat out 19 million downloads apiece for The Dark Knight and Transformers. The Leonardo DiCaprio starrer Inception and Todd Phillips‘ Hangover ranked fourth and fifth respectively in the most pirated list.

Following them were Star Trek, Kick-Ass, The Departed, The Incredible Hulk, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World‘s End to round off the top ten.

All of the films on the TorrentFreak‘s all-time list of "most pirated movies" did quite well at the box office.