The Top 25 Report
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Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (May 19 to 25, 2019)
editPrepared with commentary by Igordebraga
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Ukraine melts, Westeros ends, India votes
editIndia always surprises us whenever one of their topics leads the report or brings in the most entries; and this week our South Asian friends managed the seemingly impossible: kicked the Deaths in 2019 page out of the report! Sure, there is still the biggest death of the week, Formula One legend Niki Lauda (#11), but the list itself couldn't enter with its steady 700k views, pushed down by how the Indian election (#6) brought six of the involved political parties. Though the top spot is taken by a nuclear disaster whose story is currently being told by HBO, (#1, #14) who in the meantime contrasted the atomic plant going out with a bang by finishing their biggest hit show with whimper (#4, #5, #25). On television there was also the Eurovision contest (#23), wrestling (#21), and on the digital front, Netflix providing material on a serial killer (#8). From TV to movies, Disney getting heaps of money (#3) out of superheroes (#2) and cartoon remakes (#10, #24), and lesser studios also making profits out of killers both skilled (#7, #9) and downright superpowered (#22). Also, a billionaire helped students (#19) graduate without crippling debt.
For the week of May 19 to 25, 2019, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the WP:5000 report were:
Rank Article Class Views Image About 1 Chernobyl disaster 
2,063,994 
In 1986, a Soviet nuclear plant had one of its reactors explode, spreading radiation all over Europe and creating enough of a disaster that only the 2011 post-tsunami meltdown in Japan managed to match it. Both the accident at Chernobyl and the contention\cleanup efforts are currently being dramatized in an eponymous HBO miniseries (#14). 2 Avengers: Endgame
2,022,223 
The culmination of the previous 21 Marvel Cinematic Universe movies finally leaves the top slot after a month in the lead. Viewer interest is still pretty high, which should be clear by both the high position and how much money Endgame is making, as it's behind only Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the US and Avatar worldwide. Speaking of that... 3 List of highest-grossing films 
1,746,719 
The above entry continues to move closer and closer to finally ending the reign of Avatar (just to show much a phenomenon a movie must be to earn $2.7 billion, no matter if tickets are more expensive now). And maybe our #10 will soon join this list, given there are three of those Disney remakes in the top 50? 4 Game of Thrones (season 8)
1,717,867 
"And now my watch is ended." The series finale became the most seen HBO telecast ever. Most of whom were certainly frustrated at what D. B. Weiss and David Benioff (pictured) gave them: on the good side, it wasn't a bleak and depressing gut punch like quite a few GoT episodes; on the bad side, it was a succession of anti-climactic moments that basically felt like a filmed book epilogue. Previous television sensation Lost, whose conclusion was also a point of contention, at least moved me when I watched it. And so Game of Thrones, along with being the biggest show of the decade, also joins fellow 2010s productions Dexter and How I Met Your Mother in the "are you seriously ending with that?" category. 5 Game of Thrones 
1,600,763 6 2019 Indian general election
1,399,845 
The biggest election ever, given a 67% voter turnout translates into 600 million people casting their ballots. No wonder many of the parties involved are seen below. 7 John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum 
1,054,267 
The franchise where seemingly everyone either has connections to a secret guild of assassins or doesn't care at the people being slaughtered next to them returns, and seeing Keanu Reeves (#9) killing people left and right is still fun as hell. Critics and viewers agree. 8 Ted Bundy
1,010,258 
In-between entries regarding a fictional assassin, a very real serial killer who has both a non-fiction miniseries and a dramatized biopic on him on Netflix. 9 Keanu Reeves
961,787 
The star of our #7, who will also have a voice acting gig this June in Toy Story 4, and whose slow aging probably means there is a painting of a decayed Keanu hidden in his house. 10 Aladdin (2019 film)
911,300 
Ever since Alice in Wonderland made a billion in the box office (it's still 36th in the list on #3!), Disney has decided to not hold back on taking their animated classics and remaking them with actors. The latest one is Guy Ritchie's Aladdin, originally released the same 1992 where lead actor Mena Massoud was born and new Genie Will Smith was still just the Fresh Prince (his first movie came out one year later). Reviews were mixed - and as someone who likes the original enough to make a Good Article out of it, this here writer was entertained but had objections to many of the additions\changes to make the movie longer - yet audiences didn't care as the movie already opened atop the box office with a $95 million gross. 11 Niki Lauda
899,496 
The three time Formula One World Champion died on 20 May. He was considered one of the greatest racing drivers of all time. 12 Shiv Sena 
878,379 
In what must be surprising to Americans, India has more than two parties in the election. And those two aren't even nationwide, only concentrated in certain states. 13 Janata Dal (United)
873,111 
14 Chernobyl (miniseries)
866,387 
Breaking in a flood of Indian political parties, HBO's dramatization of the disaster at #1, currently airing on Mondays (hopefully pleasing those who didn't like #5 the day before) and whose final episode airs on June 3. 15 Samajwadi Party
861,987 
Four of the 59 recognized parties involved in the Indian election. And I thought the 33 in my country, which has one fifth of the population, was already too much! 16 Telangana Rashtra Samithi
853,558 
17 Nationalist Congress Party
851,971 
18 Communist Party of India
849,231 
19 Robert F. Smith (investor)
845,555 
Smith is a man who got some breaks in life - he's worth $5 billion and is the wealthiest African American, and his wife was Playmate of the Year - and in a truly selfless act, decided to provide one for the people graduating Morehouse College (picture) this year, by paying all their student debt. 20 Rashtriya Janata Dal
842,270 
The last of them Indian parties in our list. 21 Money in the Bank (2019)
796,228 
The latest wrestling pantomime, featuring Becky Lynch successfully defending one of her championship belts and having Bayley (pictured) taking the other. 22 Brightburn
786,567 
Before being given the keys to one superhero team and then another, James Gunn made a dark comedy spin of the genre in Super. His brother and his cousin, with Gunn himself producing, wrote a script that bring superheroes to horror instead: what if once Superman became a teen, he instead turned into an homicidal maniac? That's bad news for Elizabeth Banks (pictured) and David Denman, the Ma and Pa Kent of this story. Reviews were mixed for Brightburn, but the movie already paid itself with its $7 million opening weekend (5th place in the ranking, behind #10, #7, #2, and the dropped out Pokémon Detective Pikachu). 23 Eurovision Song Contest 2019
777,056 
Just like all the Indian entries, can't opine much about this given I'm from the New World. Anyway, Netherlands won (pictured), and the Icelandic contribution by Hatari was quite the sight. 24 Naomi Scott
760,125 
The Princess Jasmine of our #10, an Indian-British beauty with quite the connection to the star of our #22, Elizabeth Banks: the two were on opposite sides in 2017's Power Rangers (Scott was the Pink Ranger, Banks was the villain) and Banks is directing Scott in this year's reboot of Charlie's Angels. 25 A Song of Ice and Fire
736,588 
Whoever hated how our #4\5 ended cannot wait for George R. R. Martin to end the novels that inspired the series, no matter how long he has been taking. After all, many of the contentious choices in the last few years owe to how the show ran out of source material once season 5 ended.
Exclusions
edit- This list excludes the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the talk page if you wish.
- Note: If you came here from the Signpost article, please take any discussion of exclusions to this article's talk page.