( justtvvideos.com )

Determining the most popular films in American theaters depends largely upon which sources you consult.

As of this writing, the New York Times determined, basfed on reviews read, detail pages views, and trailers seen from the Times’s Website over the previous 24 hours, that David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” is the number one film in the United States. The film addresses changing relationships between Carl Jung, his mentor Freud, and a Jungian patient.

The following five most popular films in the same survey were, in descending order, “My Week With Marilyn” (about Marilyn Monroe), “Hugo” (adapting the children’s novel and using it as a kid of tribute to early film in the bargain), “The Muppets” (returning the famous “Sesame Street” characters to the screen), and “Descendants” (featuring George Clooney in a story about a Hawaiian family).

However, The-Numbers.com, which ranks films based on surveying nearly up-to-the-minute box office data, had “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1” at the top slot, with the next four, in descending order, being “Immortals,” “Happy Feet 2,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2,” and “J. Edgar,” the last a biographical look at the legendary and controversial first director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

USA Today, on the other hand, lists the same top three as The-Numbers.com but shows fourth and fifth place belonging to the Adam Sandler comedy “Jack and Jill” and the animated “Puss in Boots,” based on a character that first appeared in the “Shrek” films. USA Today bases their listing on findings by Rentrak Corporation.

Both The-Numbers.com and USA Today/Rentrak culled their findings from box-office figures the weekend of 18-20 November.

“The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1” was released that same weekend and grossed a reported $138,122,261, with a reported theater average gross in the same time period being $34,011. “Immortals” and “Happy Feet 2” were also released in time for the same weekend, with “Jack and Jill” two weeks old and “Puss in Boots,” four weeks old.

“Descendants” was the tenth-ranked box-office gross of the weekend in its first week of life; “J. Edgar” ranked seventh on the weekend box-office gross after a second week’s release. The rest of the top ten box-office grossers were, in descending order, “Tower Heist” (number six; three weeks old), “A Very Harold and Kumar 3DChristmas” (number eight; three weeks old), and “in Time” (number nine; four weeks old).