Each year, newly-released movies are faced with fierce competition for the top spot in the U.S. Box Office, which is determined by total domestic gross. Although the year is not over yet, it is highly unlikely that any of the December releases will alter the current rankings. As of the beginning of December, the U.S. Box Office and their current gross income ratings were: 1. Marvel’s “The Avengers” ($623,357,910), 2. “The Dark Knight Rises” ($448,097,008), 3. “The Hunger Games” ($408,010,692), 4. “The Amazing Spider-Man” ($262,030,663) and finally, 5. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2” ($255,813,342).

Marvel’s “The Avengers” was considered this year’s number one summer flick. The film, based on the Marvel comic book, focuses on a team of superheroes formed by Nick Fury played by Samuel L. Jackson. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Rener) and Black Widow (Scarlet Johanson) are the members of this elite team.

These superheroes assembled as ‘The Avengers” and are obligated to save planet Earth from Loki and his evil army.

This film was deemed successful even prior to its release because of the previous fan base its other superhero franchises had established. Nevertheless, critics have praised both the action sequences and special effects. Each character in this amazing ensemble of superheroes is given their own great action scene, leading up to a collective finale.

The script was consistently regarded as one of the more well-written superhero movies. Each character was fully developed, in addition to the strong focus on the plot and ultimately the clever dialogue enhances chemistry between the characters. With these aspects, the bar has definitely been raised for any movies Marvel releases in the future.

“The Avengers” became the third highest-grossing movie of all-time, grossing a total of $1.51 billion worldwide, following behind “Avatar” and “Titanic”. Due to its recent box office success, director and writer Josh Whedon is working on a sequel to be released in 2015.

Ranking second in the U.S. Box Office for 2012 was the highly-anticipated conclusion to “The Dark Knight Rises”. This is the third and final installment of director Christopher Nolan’s Batman film trilogy.

Overall, this film has been reviewed as an end to Nolan’s trilogy. It lacked, however, great qualities of a superhero film to stand alone without its two predecessors.

Nevertheless, most reviews still classify this as the greatest comic-book adaptation to date. University freshman Jason Davis compared “Dark Knight Rises” to “The Avengers”, “I thought that Dark Knight Rises was a better film in regards to film quality and plot, but “The Avengers” definitely had more action and was overall more entertaining.”

The third box-office hit was none other than “The Hunger Games”. Although not superhero-based, “The Hunger Games”, adapted from Suzanne Collins’ series of the same name, is set in a futuristic dystopia where two teenagers from each of the twelve districts are sent to fight to the death in a televised event known as ‘The Hunger Games.’ The movie was greatly reviewed in regards to the action and set, but many believe it was truly Jennifer Lawrence’s performance as Katniss that made the film so successful.

“The Amazing Spiderman” was the third superhero film to do well in the box office, but ranked as the fourth film in the U.S. Box Office according to domestic gross income. This reboot of the original Spiderman trilogy shows the development of Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) into Spiderman during high school, with more focus on his origins and relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone).

Although many audiences enjoyed the new attractive and witty Spiderman portrayed by Garfield, many critics explained how people have already established Tobey Maguire as the only Spiderman. Furthermore, many reviewers felt that this film simply repeated plot points from the 2002 “Spiderman”.

Sydney Seperis, university freshman, disagreed with the majority of the reviews and explained, “I believe Andrew Garfield was a better Spiderman than Tobey Maguire. Also, I think it is necessary that several plot points were reestablished because when dealing with a superhero classic such as Spiderman, the details must be accurate, otherwise the movie will fail.”

Lastly, currently ranked fifth in the U.S. Box Office is “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2”. This is the final movie for the best-selling series. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner all reprise their roles as Bella Swan, Edward Cullen, and Jacob Black, respectively. This final installment focused on the birth of Bella and Edwards daughter, Renesmee, begins a war between the Volturi and the Cullens.

Superheroes were the go to attractions in this year’s movie crop. With blockbuster hits such as “The Avengers”, “The Dark Knight Rises”, and “The Amazing Spiderman” studioes are sure to take notice and try to repeat a similiar sucess for 2013.