For moviegoers, the holiday weekend was a choice of extremes.

Of the top five movies at domestic theaters, two were live-action franchise behemoths (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker,” “Jumanji: The Next Level”); two were genial animated films with obvious appeal to families assembled for the holidays (“Frozen 2,” “Spies in Disguise”); and one was a reimagining of a beloved but 150-year-old Louisa May Alcott book.

Alcott held her own.

Sony’s “Little Women,” an adaptation by Greta Gerwig of Alcott’s 19th-century, coming-of-age novel, sold an estimated $16.5 million in tickets at domestic theaters Friday through Sunday. That places it in a dead heat for third place with Disney’s “Frozen 2,” now in its sixth weekend in theaters. Final counts on Monday will determine which film placed third. Regardless, it was a good weekend for “Little Women,” which opened on Christmas Day and finished the weekend with $29 million in estimated cumulative sales.

[Read our critic’s review of “Little Women.”]

An all-star cast doubtlessly helped sell moviegoers on “Little Women” — Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep are in it — and the movie got terrific reviews (it currently holds a 95 percent fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes). Audiences were clearly eager to see Gerwig’s follow-up to “Lady Bird,” her 2017 movie about an angsty teenage girl that was among the most critically lauded films of the decade.

Reviews aren’t everything, though. Just ask “Star Wars.”

Despite being the most poorly reviewed entry in the most recent “Star Wars” trilogy, Disney’s “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” easily held on to first place this weekend, with $72 million in estimated domestic ticket sales Friday through Sunday. The movie is leaving its second weekend in theaters with an estimated $724.8 million in total global ticket sales.