Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/April 25 to May 1, 2021

The Top 25 Report

This page contains material that is kept because it is considered humorous.
Such material is not meant to be taken seriously.

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (April 25 to May 1, 2021)[edit]

Prepared with commentary by igordebraga and Kingsif

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As usual, the Academy Awards brought in many views and entries, though not as dominating given it was not easy for film fans, let alone the average person, to follow the movies in these terrible, disease-ridden days. There are also articles related to mixed martial arts and media available on streaming services.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	93rd Academy Awards	1,571,338	The goddamned pandemic derailed the film industry, yet AMPAS still decided to award the best productions of 2020 (and early 2021). One of the major jibes before the ceremony got started was its choice of main location, a train station (pictured), and it only got worse from there. The Oscars, adamantly refusing to use Zoom (or similar) after the less than successful early awards ceremonies, was in-person only, though they added hubs in London and Paris so nominees that didn't want to (or, couldn't) go to Los Angeles could attend. It certainly felt more like the Golden Globes in a normal year with its audience at tables and such. Except they weren't drunk, nor particularly excited. The screen ban also meant there were no clips played before categories, and both the hosts and the In Memoriam seemed to be rushing to get home. So, between the average moviegoer having not seen the nominees and and a fairly uninteresting ceremony, it translated into the lowest ratings ever.
2	Mortal Kombat (2021 film)	1,563,890	24 years after the disastrous Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, the ultraviolent fighting game series returned to theaters (and HBO Max) giving everything fans hoped for, namely lots of people punching each other, good special effects, mostly accurate portrayals of their beloved characters, and dialogue featuring things such as "Fatality!", "Flawless Victory!" and "GET OVER HERE!" Hence Mortal Kombat already recouped its $55 million budget even with not as many screens available.
3	Nomadland (film)	1,449,019	One of the weirdest things in #1 was that the top category, Best Picture, was the third-to-last instead of the big prize at the end. Its winner was the adaptation of a non-fiction book about a woman who decides to spend her days ~~living in a van down by the river~~ vandwelling. Two of the producers winning this prize also took home Best Director (#10) and Actress (#8).
4	Rohit Sardana	1,331,967	From Hollywood to India, where a local TV anchor died at just 41 from a heart attack.
5	2021 NFL Draft	1,309,263	American football got its latest college athletes, with the Jacksonville Jaguars using their #1 pick on Trevor Lawrence.
6	Shadow and Bone	1,267,141	Netflix has released a new series adapting a fantasy novel by Leigh Bardugo (pictured), following Alina Starkov (played by #25) as she discovers she has the power to set her country free from the fold, a perpetually dark, barren strip of land cutting the country in two.
7	Shadow and Bone (TV series)	1,134,244
8	Frances McDormand	983,409	Best Actress at #1 came to this talented thespian for #3, a near-record third time (only behind Katherine Hepburn's four; counting the Supporting category, she now has as many Oscars as Meryl Streep!), following a pregnant policewoman from the middle of nowhere (where the director was husband Joel Coen) and an angry mother exploiting outdoor advertisement. McDormand also got a second statuette as the film's co-producer, and celebrated that win by howling! Here she's pictured with a different award she won thrice.
9	Deaths in 2021	960,124	Given the In Memoriam at #1 (speedily) used this song: Until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea (Always) Until we dream of life and life becomes a dream
10	Chloé Zhao	925,572	For only the second time, Best Director went to a woman, the one responsible for #3. And Ms. Zhao's next movie will certainly show if she can do action as well as fellow winner Kathryn Bigelow, namely Marvel's Eternals.
11	Anthony Hopkins	787,853	The most questionable choice at #1 was deciding to close the ceremony in the main acting categories, both of whom went to veterans who already had Oscars at home. After #8, it was time for Hannibal Lecter, who didn't want to leave his homeland of Wales to attend the ceremony, where at the age of 83 he would've gotten his second award playing a patriarch suffering from dementia in The Father (#13). Hopkins released his acceptance speech the following day.
12	Kamaru Usman	663,965	A UFC fighter. I assume he's involved with the fight that's featured this week.
13	The Father (2020 film)	644,145	Winner of Best Actor (#11) and Best Adapted Screenplay, which as Honest Trailers summed up: "Anthony Hopkins gives the performance of a lifetime, as an old man refusing help for the dementia that's slowly eating away at his mind, that's such a heartbreaking, torturous, and cruel portrayal of a legend's final days, there's no way you actually watched it. Nuh-uh! No! This year's been hard enough!"
14	List of Mortal Kombat characters	618,572	A bunch of fighting game characters who in every fight are subject to bleeding gallons with every hit and having their bones shattered. #2 has some of them, including a cold ninja, a fiery ninja, a Bruce Lee clone, a guy with killer headwear, a thief who might not have heart but will take it from adversaries, a Green Beret that could moonlight as a model, an electric deity, a handicapped soldier and a woman with nasty teeth - and yet the protagonist is an original character due to studio imposition.
15	Rose Namajunas	596,101	Another UFC fighter? Boy is wrestling getting popular.
16	Noel Clarke	576,119	Speaking of #1, at its British counterpart held two weeks earlier, Clarke won an honorary award. That he lost this week, as well as all of his current and future projects (the final episode of a TV show he leads was canceled on-the-day) due to a lot of allegations of professional and sexual misconduct. One wonders if Adam Deacon feels vindicated right now.
17	The Falcon and the Winter Soldier	574,449	The second Marvel Cinematic Universe show on Disney+ didn't set this report on fire like predecessor WandaVision, but hangs on for another week. Next up in June is Loki, exploring how the time travel shenanigans of Avengers: Endgame made possible for a dead character to have more adventures. Or we all like Tom Hiddleston too much, though Twitter has plenty of opinions about Sebastian Stan.
18	Charles Sobhraj	558,674	Sobhraj continues to rank highly after a TV series dramatising his crimes and capture, The Serpent, started streaming on Netflix. The show's name is based on one of his nicknames, a wise decision by the BBC not to name it after another nickname. "The Bikini Killer"? Not quite the same effect.
19	Elizabeth II	531,941	HM's presence on this list is almost as long as her reign. It was one of her birthdays recently, which might have scored a few extra views.
20	UFC 261	524,561	Fighting. Since we mention Jacksonville in #5, it's worth to say this also happened there, because apparently Florida cares more about sport than slowing the spread.
21	Invincible (TV series)	491,665	Prime Video's animated adaptation of a very kid-unfriendly superhero comic closed its first season, and has already been renewed for more.
22	Michael Collins (astronaut)	491,110	The least famous member of Apollo 11 (and the only one to not walk on the Moon, as he remained orbiting the satellite in the Command module Columbia) died at the age of 90.
23	Promising Young Woman	482,710	The rape and revenge film is updated for the MeToo era as Carey Mulligan avenges her dead raped friend, in this Best Picture nominee which took home Best Original Screenplay at #1. Mulligan's article, less that of the movie, has been hovering around just below the top 25 for a few weeks now, following an endearing SNL appearance and omission from nomination at the BAFAs.
24	Chadwick Boseman	475,789	The decision to close #1 on Best Actor was probably hoping to finish the Oscars awarding Black Panther a posthumous Best Actor prize for Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. So what an anti-climax for the ceremony's producers when Odin (#11) won instead - and wasn't even there to collect the award, very abruptly ending the show. A little later, though, Hopkins made sure to give Boseman a shout out, and the late actor's family said that it was no big deal not winning the Oscar.
25	Jessie Mei Li	475,525	The British star of #7. Next for her is Edgar Wright's next movie, Last Night in Soho.

Other Oscar tidbits

Daniel Kaluuya (#33, 430,223 views): Wow, no love for the Best Supporting Actor, who before his winning role in Judas and the Black Messiah (which would've been #43; H.E.R., who won Best Original Song for the film, got #112) had a nomination for the 2017 hit Get Out.
Minari (film) (#40, 390,406 views): The film responsible for the Best Supporting Actress performance, namely that of veteran Korean actress Youn Yuh-jung (#64).
Riz Ahmed (#49, 343,478 views): He didn't win Best Actor, but scored much more views than his movie, Sound of Metal (#61), winner of both Sound and Editing.
Emerald Fennell (#52, 326,848 views): The writer-director of #23, and winner of Best Original Screenplay. Add that she's an actress (recently seen as #19's daughter-in-law on The Crown), and makes sense Fennell got more views than star Carey Mulligan (#69).
Mank (#67, 292,283 views): David Fincher's movie about the co-writer of Citizen Kane was the biggest nominee and scored two wins, Art Direction and Cinematography.
Academy Awards (#68): Interest was so low for the Oscar nominees that even the overview for the award history got more views than many of those! Even Academy Award for Best Picture (#124) was more sought.
COVID-19 pandemic (#70): Why the film industry had a lousy 2020 that led to an underwhelming Academy Award ceremony.
List of awards and nominations received by Frances McDormand (#81), List of awards and nominations received by Anthony Hopkins (#84): #8 and #11 have had really good careers.
Another Round (film) (#99): Winner of Best International Feature. And an American remake is in the works - why not take the advice of the director of Parasite to overcome the one-inch barrier of subtitles?
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (#108): The movie for which #24 scored a Best Actor nom, and winner of Best Make-Up and Costume Design.
Tyler Perry (#111): Madea Goes to the Oscars. Though it was the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, recognizing Perry's extensive philanthropy and charity work.
My Octopus Teacher (#128): Winner of Best Documentary. And seeing a movie from that category, which barely passed 200,000 views this week (200,319), get more attention than other productions or people at the Oscars is a nice closer to how much Wikipedia readers didn't care.

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.