Top 20 highest-grossing movies of 2013 revealed

Iron Man 3 has been named the most successful movie of 2013.

According to Box Office Mojo, Marvel's comic book threequel beat competition from Despicable Me 2 and Fast & Furious 6 to top the worldwide box office chart for the year.

The action packed superhero movie starring Robert Downey Jr earned over $1.2 billion more than its closest competitor.

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The Hunger Games: Catching Fire sits at number four in the 2013 list, while Pixar's Monsters University came in at number five.

Iron Man 3's achievement increases the hero's total box office takings to about $3.8 billion, making him cinema's most bankable superhero. Tim Burton, Joel Schumacher and Christopher Nolan's Batman movies have earned almost as much with a heathly $3.7 billion, while all four Spider-Man films have made $3.2 billion. Supes, meanwhile, hasn't traditionally been so popular, earning only $1.5 billion.

Only four of the 20 highest-grossing films of the year, were original films not sequels or based on books, comics or existing intellectual properties. The most successful of those was Oscar-tipped space epic Gravity, while The Croods, Pacific Rim and Now You See me also made the list.

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The top 20 highest-grossing movies of 2013 are as follows:

1. Iron Man 3 - $1,215,439,994
2. Despicable Me 2 - $918,573,535
3. Fast & Furious 6 - $788,679,850
4. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire - $771,484,011
5. Monsters University - $743,559,607
6. Man of Steel - $662,845,518
7. Gravity - $652,394,288
8. Thor: The Dark World - $627,858,622
9. The Croods - $587,204,668
10. World War Z - $540,007,876
11. Oz the Great and Powerful - $493,311,825
12. Star Trek Into Darkness - $467,365,246
13. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - $426,244,000   
14. The Wolverine - $414,828,246
15. Pacific Rim - $407,602,906
16. GI Joe: Retaliation - $375,740,705
17. Frozen - $363,012,773
18. Now You See Me - $351,723,989
19. The Hangover Part III - $351,000,072
20. The Great Gatsby - $348,840,419