James Cameron's Avatar is the number one pirated movie of 2010, according to new BitTorrent stats.

The movies that were downloaded illegally in the past year pretty much adhere to what were the big movies of the last 12 months but there are a few notable exceptions.

Toy Story 3 isn't in the top 10, despite its massive box-office success, and neither is Alice In Wonderland.

Pirates life for me

Three movies which had critical success but only moderate takings at the box office did make the list. These were: Kick-Ass (2), Green Zone (7) and The Hurt Locker (9).

The remainder of the flicks that got pirated the most were: Inception (3), Shutter Island (4), Iron Man 2 (5), Clash of the Titans (6), Sherlock Holmes (8) and Salt (10).

The folks behind Oscar winner The Hurt Locker know all about piracy – its producers are currently trying to sue those who uploaded the movie illegally to the internet.