Ranking of the ten most pirated movies worldwide 2022

Superhero movies held the first five positions of the top ten most pirated movies of 2022. Out of the ten most downloaded movies of that year, Marvel's “Spider-Man: No Way Home” accounted for 21 percent of the piracy demand, while DC's “The Batman” came in second with a total of 13 percent.

Big fish more likely to be pirated

It is no surprise that the most pirated movies were superhero movies or part of extremely popular series. Movie franchises such as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and Star Wars topped the ranking of the highest grossing film series as of June 2022. Disney currently owns both these very lucrative franchises – MCU’s acquisition was finalized in 2009 and Star War’s in 2012, each a four-billion deal.

Making waves

While the number of visits to film piracy sites declined at the end of 2020, that value sharply increased in 2021, reaching 5.29 billion visits in its third quarter. Global losses of revenues through the piracy of online TV and movies are expected to reach a total of 51.6 billion U.S. dollars by 2022, almost the double of the value recorded in 2016. The North American and Chinese markets were forecast to record the highest revenue loss through piracy in 2022. That same year, the Chinese online TV and movie industry was expected to lose more than twice what it did six years prior.