A look back at the highest grossing films of 2010

Frederic Cone
Film Columnist

A new year is under way, bringing with it a new season of award shows for the American and international film industries. It also brings my new column to The Collegian, the focus of which will be centered around films and the film industry.

The awards show season gets under way at 7 p.m. Sunday on NBC with The Golden Globes. As it has in previous years, the show will give viewers a taste of who the front-runners are and who may be the dark horses that come out of nowhere to steal an Oscar at The Academy Awards next month.

There were many great films as well as countless flops that hit the screen this past year in a wide variety of genres, making it difficult to accurately break them all down into a single top 10 list of the best films.

Each year the top 10 highest grossing films internationally come from only a handful of major production houses who put their money behind three niche genres guaranteed to make them big bucks.

These genres include high action films like Iron Man 2 and Inception, which are geared toward young adults and are saturated with special effects, animated films geared toward children such as Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever After, or films like the Twilight saga or the Harry Potter series that continue with success generated from previous films that have built a huge cult following.

Although some of these films were in fact really good to watch, I tend to see films richer in storyline or deeper in content. This is why I look forward each year to the award shows where those films that tackle more complex subject matter are rewarded for their hard work and ingenuity.

Look for my recap of the winners, losers, and upsets from The Golden Globes in the next issue and also to my previews of The Screen Actors Guild Awards and The Academy Awards coming soon. With that I will leave you with the top 10 moneymakers of 2010.

1. Toy Story 3

   Disney/Pixar; worldwide gross: $1,063,143,492

2. Alice In

   Wonderland

   Walt Disney Pictures; worldwide gross: $1,024,299,722

3. Harry Potter

   and the Deathly

   Hallows: Part 1

   Warner Bros.; worldwide gross: $901,958,711

4. Inception

   Warner Bros.; worldwide gross: $825,491,877

5. Shrek

   Forever After

   DreamWorks Animation; worldwide gross: $739,813,967

6. The Twilight

   Saga: Eclipse

   Summit Entertainment; worldwide gross: $693,480,124

7. Iron Man 2

   Paramount Pictures; worldwide gross: $621,751,988

8. Despicable Me

   Universal Pictures; worldwide gross: $526,597,262

9. How To Train

   Your Dragon

   DreamWorks Animation; worldwide gross: $494,878,759

10. Clash of

    the Titans

    Warner Bros.; worldwide gross: $493,214,993

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