"Les Miserables" stormed the Christmas Day box office Tuesday, December 25 taking in an eye-popping $18.1 million on its first day of release. And Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" wasn't far behind, debuting to $15 million, TheWrap said.

Universal's star-studded musical and the Weinstein Company's R-rated slave-era Western posted the second- and third-best Christmas openings ever.

They trailed only 2009's "Sherlock Holmes," which benefitted from a Friday debut. The "Django" opening is the highest of all time for an R-rated movie on Christmas, easily topping the $10.2 million put up by "Ali" in 2001.

"Parental Guidance," the Billy Crystal-Bette Midler family comedy got in on the fun, too. It finished the day in fourth with a better-than-expected $6.3 million. Warner Bros.' "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey" fell from the top spot for the first time in two weeks but still added $11.3 million and was No. 3. "The Hobbit" is expected to play strongly while school is out so the order could change by the weekend.

Audiences loved the new movies. "Les Miz" received an "A" CinemaScore while "Django" and the other Christmas opener, Fox's "Parental Guidance," received an "A-" from first-day crowds.