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Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/February 22 to 28, 2015

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Top 25 Report: Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 22 to 28, 2015)

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Attack of the Movies: The Report this week is dominated by the Academy Awards, taking the top 4 spots and 13 of the top 25 (if you count another big jump in views for Stephen Hawking at #4). In the aggregate this is not too much different than the past two years, where the top American movie award show took 12 slots in 2014 and 14 in 2013. The 87th Academy Awards article led at #1 with an impressive 6.2 million views, though a rather low mobile view count of 12.17% suggests those numbers might be somewhat inflated; Best Picture Birdman had 2.2 million views with 50% mobile views.

Also of note this week was the death of actor Leonard Nimoy (#5). Nimoy's article was also one of the most edited recently, and is currently topping the automated Top 20 most edited articles report as of March 1, showing that 193 editors have hit "edit" 524 times. And you probably didn't know this report existed, as it is a recent creation, so now you do.

As prepared by Milowent, for the week of February 22 to 28, 2015, the 25 most popular articles on Wikipedia, as determined from the report of the most viewed pages, were:

Rank Article Class Views Image Notes
1 87th Academy Awards 6,123,378
 
 Just as this year's awards held on February 22 were a bit predictable (Really? Birdman won? I'd never have guessed!), it was just as predictable that this entry would top the chart this week.
2 Academy Awards   3,924,466
 
 See #1
3 Birdman (film)   2,198,754
 
 Received nine Oscar nominations, and won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Director for Alejandro González Iñárritu, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Birdman has only appeared in the Top 25 twice previously, for two weeks in January 2015 when it peaked at #10.
4 Stephen Hawking   1,888,402
 
 The former Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, black hole theorist and latter-day science icon makes his 17th straight appearance in the Top 25 this week. And at the Oscars, Eddie Redmayne (#8) won Best Actor for portraying him in The Theory of Everything (#20).
5 Leonard Nimoy   1,859,929
 
 The death of this beloved actor on February 27, best known for playing the role of Mr. Spock in the Star Trek franchise, led to widespread tributes. Spock's Vulcan salute bade us to "live long and prosper," as Nimoy did himself.
6 Chris Kyle   1,333,736
 
 America loves a good, old fashioned culture war, and while Clint Eastwood's American Sniper may not have wowed critics nor drawn great overseas crowds, it has played spectacularly well in America's conservative heartland. After dropping to #8 and 850,000 views last week, news that Eddie Ray Routh was found guilty of the deaths of Kyle and Chad Littlefield on February 25, after three hours of jury deliberations, raised the profile of this article once again.
7 Whiplash (2014 film)   1,007,753
 
 A new entry to this chart, Whiplash won the Oscars for Best Film Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Supporting Actor for J. K. Simmons (pictured). It had also been nominated for Best Picture. Whiplash was written and directed by Damien Chazelle based on his experiences in the Princeton High School Studio Band, and stars Miles Teller as a student jazz drummer who seeks the respect of an abusive teacher played by Simmons. Though critically acclaimed, you may not have been aware of the film, which had only grossed about $12 million worldwide (on a $3.3 million budget) prior to its Academy Award wins.
8 Eddie Redmayne   953,953
 
 See #4, Redmayne won Best Actor at the Oscars for portraying Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything (#20).
9 Fifty Shades of Grey   902,584
 
 The release of the film adaptation (#11) of this onetime Twilight fanfic continues to draw fans, though it is very unlikely to be drawing Oscars this time next year.
10 Dakota Johnson   848,159
 
 The daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson plays the lead role in Fifty Shades of Grey (film) (see #11). Griffith and her daughter were at the Oscars (of course), where some inane kerfuffle on the red carpet occurred over the fact that Griffith hadn't chosen to watch her daughter's film. We know our parents and children have sex (God willing), but we don't need to watch it.
11 Fifty Shades of Grey (film)   767,813
 
 See #9, #10.
12 Julianne Moore   737,492
 
 Yes, another person who won an Oscar. How did you guess? Moore won Best Actress for her role in Still Alice.
13 Boyhood (film)   664,574
 
 Though released theatrically in the United States in July 2014, this coming-of-age drama film, shot intermittently over a 12-year period, only reached wide attention when it won three Golden Globe Awards in January. At the Oscars, Patricia Arquette won the award for Best Supporting Actress.
14 Lady Gaga   653,386
 
 Finally, someone who is not an actress! Lady Gaga, who apparently has not made the Top 25 since we started this list in January 2013, was popular this week because ... she ... uh .... wore another meat dress? Oh NO. She performed at the Oscars. Oh come on already.
15 Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant   628,715
 
 Good grief. This is what we get for getting tired of the Oscars. The most brutal terrorist group in recent history, still staying in the news for its continued exploits.
16 Patricia Arquette   615,168
 
 See #13, another Oscar winner.
17 Fenn treasure   595,842
 
 A reddit thread brought another round of attention to the alleged treasure of $1-3 million in value hidden in the Rocky Mountains in the United States.
18 American Sniper (film)   593,711
 
 See #6. Back on the Top 25, up from 368,546 views last week.
19 Julie Andrews   577,769
 
 So #14 Lady Gaga sang a Sound of Music medley at the Oscars, and Julie Andrews starred in that 1965 film. Andrews was at Oscars too, where she presented the award for Best Original Score, which was won by The Grand Budapest Hotel.
20 The Theory of Everything (film)   562,938
 
 See #4, #8
21 John Legend   562,700
 
 Legend won the Oscar for Best Original Song for "Glory", from the film Selma. The song also previously won the best song award at the Golden Globes, among other accolades.
22 House of Cards (season 3)   554,178
 
 The third season of this popular series starring Kevin Spacey as the U.S. President was released on Netflix on February 27.
23 House of Cards (U.S. TV series)   552,658
 
 See #22. The series also stars Robin Wright (pictured) as the First Lady.
24 WWE Fastlane   545,952
 
 This professional wrestling pay-per-view event was held on February 22. As the article describes in vivid detail that is incomprehensible to this writer yet still conveys great excitement: "In the main event, Roman Reigns defended his WWE World Heavyweight Championship match at WrestleMania against Daniel Bryan, who qualified for the match on Raw earlier in the month. Reigns and Bryan each performed some of their signature moves, including Reigns' apron dropkick and Bryan's surfboard submission. Bryan applied the Yes Lock on Reigns, who was able to reach the ropes for a break. When Reigns subsequently rolled out of the ring, Bryan performed two suicide dives, but an attempt at a third dive resulted in Reigns catching Bryan for a suplex outside the ring. Both competitors barely beat the referee's count of ten. Reigns performed the Superman Punch, but Bryan kicked out. After that, Bryan performed the Running Knee, with Reigns kicking out. (Prior to this match, no one had ever kicked out of the Running Knee.) After a series of roundhouse kicks, Bryan attempted a second Running Plus, but Reigns countered with a spear, pinning Bryan. Visibly upset, Bryan shook Reigns' hand but added that "you better kick his (Lesnar's) ass" as the show ended with the two leaving the ring."
25 Deaths in 2015   542,479
 
 The viewing figures for this article have been remarkably constant; fluctuating week to week between 450 and 550,000, apparently heedless of who actually died.

Exclusions

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  • 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 also exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (2% or less) or almost all mobile views (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.

Specific exclusions this week:

  • None
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