LOS ANGELES (AP) — Inception is still kicking at the box office.

The mind-bending Warner Bros thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio remained the No 1 movie for the third-straight weekend with $27.5 million, bringing its total to $193.3 million, according to studio estimates yesterday. Inception edged out the weekend’s new releases: Dinner for Schmucks, Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore and Charlie St Cloud.

“Inception has seeped into the cultural zeitgeist,” said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com. “It’s something that everyone is talking about right now. When a movie is able to do that and something just clicks, it becomes a national — even an international — discussion, and it’s seemingly impervious to any of the newcomers.”

Dinner for Schmucks, the Paramount comedy starring Steve Carell and Paul Rudd, followed closely behind Inception with $23.3 million, while the Warner Bros 3-D sequel Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore fetched $12.5 million in the No 5 spot. Charlie St Cloud, the Universal Pictures drama starring Zac Efron, debuted at No 6 with $12.1 million.

“For us to clearly be the runaway of the three new films this weekend and come as close as we did to ‘Inception,’ which is a wonderful movie, is pretty solid,” said Don Harris, Paramount’s vice president of distribution. “With a Zac Efron movie and a 3-D sequel to a popular movie, I think people expected it to be a horse race, but it really wasn’t.”

Salt clung to No 3 with $19.2 million in its second weekend, bringing its total to a solid $70.8 million. The Sony spy caper starring Angelina Jolie as a CIA operative who goes rogue suffered a 47 percent drop from its $36.5 million opening weekend. During the busy summer movie season, top hits often drop 50 percent or more in the second weekend.

Overall revenues rose for the fifth-straight weekend as Hollywood continued to recover from a lackluster box office earlier in the summer. Receipts totaled $145 million, up over 15 percent from the same weekend last year, when receipts totaled $125.7 million and the Judd Apatow film Funny People debuted in the No1 spot with $22.6 million.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theatres, according to Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released today.

1. Inception, $27.5 million.

2. Dinner for Schmucks, $23.3 million.

3. Salt, $19.2 million.

4. Despicable Me, $15.5 million.

5. Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, $12.5 million.

6. Charlie St. Cloud, $12.1 million.

7. Toy Story 3, $5 million.

8. Grown Ups, $4.5 million.

9. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, $4.3 million.

10. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, $3.9 million.