With such films as "Spare Parts," "Gloria," "Wild Tales" and "McFarland USA" on the horizon, 2015 looks primed to be another year where Latin American cinema gets its rightful place alongside more mainstream fare.

But is Latino cinema slated to be a big box office success?

Looking at all the Latino films from 2014 is a massive task considering the volume. In fact defining a Latino film is even more complex. Is it subject matter? Director? Actor? Place of origin? In this analysis, we shall look at subject matter, theme, director and place of origin as the central means of defining a film as "Latino."

As expected, Latin American films' box office receipts were all over the map in 2014. "Cantinflas," the biopic about the great Mexican actor, was the undeniable success story in terms of box office intake. The film made an impressive $6.3 million over the course of its run, making it the 52nd highest grossing foreign film of all time according to Box Office Mojo. That critics blasted the film makes the feat all the more impressive.

Other Latino biopics panned by critics include "The Liberator" and "Cesar Chavez." The former was Venezuela's submission for the foreign film Oscars and found itself lambasted for its overlong and repetitive structure. Latin Post's review stated "[The Liberator] is a marked disappointment as far as biopics go and continues to show that this genre fails when it tries to be all-encompassing. Had 'The Liberator' dealt with a specific crisis or moment in Bolivar's life, then it probably would have succeeded in painting the man in full color. But as it stands, this film is sprawling, slow and lacking in depth. It fails to live up to the grandeur of its subject."

For its poor reception, the film wound up with a pitiful box office intake of $113,000 in US gross. For any film that is abysmal, but for a film marketed as the most expensive ever undertaken in South American, that is an disaster.

The "Cesar Chavez" cost over $10 million, but failed to recoup the amount in USA box office, only bringing in $5.6 million. And again the film was blasted by critics with a 41 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Box office success rebounded for the Latino-themed "Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones," but one would have to give the edge to the brand name in that case than the Latino themes. That said of the five films in the franchise, this one is the weakest box office performer of the lot. This might have to do with the prevailing sequel fatigue witnessed throughout most of the calendar year as the last two films have seen box offices dwindle significantly. As with most other films noted in this article, reviews were squalid.

"Blacker than Night," another horror film starring telenovela star Zuria Vega, barely made an impression on the U.S. box office with an intake of $864,000 during its run. Unsurprisingly, reviews were poor.

Are we seeing a trend here?

Not so fast. There were some Latin American films with solid reviews and even better box office intake.

"The Book of Life" was the biggest surprise of all. Featuring a cornucopia of Latino Stars including Zoe Saldana, Diego Luna, Sandra Echeverria, Kate del Castillo and Dany Trejo among others, the film was a critics darling and brought in a healthy $49 million in the US, making it the highest grossing film in this analysis. But even that was a loss as the film cost $50 million to produce.

Another film that was beloved by critics was Chile's "Gloria" which brought in $2 million, a success for an art film that would generally get little to no attention.

But the undeniable Latino hit of 2014 was the Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu-directed "Birdman." The film, which has no Latin stars and no Latino-themed content, was nonetheless directed by the Mexican helmer and represented the biggest cinematic success from a Latin American standpoint. The film is an awards race frontrunner and has grossed over $26 million, surpassing its $18 million budget.

It should be interesting to see which Latino films succeed in 2015 and which catch on.