Wikipedia:Top 25 Report/December 29, 2024 to January 4, 2025

Don't forget to read the 2024 annual top 50 report

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (December 29, 2024 to January 4, 2025)

Prepared with commentary by Igordebraga, Ollieisanerd, Shuipzv3, and CAWylie.

Rank	Article	Views	Notes/about
1	Jimmy Carter	4,177,739	The 39th president of the United States died on December 29, aged 100. Serving as president from 1977 to 1981, the latter part of Carter's presidency was marked by his handling of the 1979 oil crisis and the Iran hostage crisis, which negatively affected his popularity. He lost the 1980 presidential election to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan in a landslide. While his presidency is regarded as below-average, his post-presidency work garnered him universal praise. Establishing the Carter Center in 1982 with his wife (#22), the organization worked to advance human rights across the world, running projects to monitor elections, mediate conflicts, and tackle neglected tropical diseases. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. Carter was also known for his work with Habitat for Humanity, building houses with volunteers even in an advanced age. Carter's state funeral will take place from January 4 to 9.
2	Squid Game season 2	3,101,911	Well I'm back in the Squid Game... The Korean hit show about bankrupt people who discover the money-making enterprise they joined involved playing life-or-death versions of children games returned to Netflix, as did the protagonist who won season 1, the games' overseer, his brother who wants to disrupt the games, and the giant doll from a deadly Red Light, Green Light contest. Along with big viewership numbers, the fact season 2 ends on a cliffhanger speaks volumes on the anticipation for season 3.
3	Nosferatu (2024 film)	1,690,246	In 1922, German filmmaker F. W. Murnau made Nosferatu, an unauthorized adaptation of Dracula with among other changes the vampire's name now being Count Orlok. Robert Eggers decided to make its latest remake, with a star-studded cast (that adequately includes Nicholas Hoult, who made a Dracula-adjacent film in Renfield, and Willem Dafoe, who in 2000 starred in Shadow of the Vampire, showing the filming of Nosferatu if lead actor Max Schreck was actually a vampire!) and the same creepy atmosphere Eggers pulled in The VVitch. Nosferatu was critically acclaimed and upon its premiere on Christmas Day managed to have a strong showing at the box office to open only behind two family-friendly pictures (#8 and #17), and its earnings have already covered the film's $50 million budget.
4	Squid Game	1,630,036	When the first season of this South Korean dystopian thriller was released in 2021, it became Netflix's most-watched original television program. The second season (#2), released on December 26, 2024, debuted with 68 million views and ranked at No. 1 in 92 countries. A third and final season will be released this year, and will no doubt make an appearance on this report.
5	Pushpa 2: The Rule	1,143,343
6	Jeju Air Flight 2216	1,082,376	Jeju Air Flight 2216 was a scheduled passenger flight operated by Jeju Air from Bangkok, Thailand to Muan International Airport in South Korea. On December 29, the aircraft operating the flight landed on its second attempt with no landing gear, possibly due to damage from a bird strike. It skidded down the runway, overrunning it and crashed into an embankment, where it immediately burst into flames. Out of the 181 occupants, two cabin crew survived.
7	2025 PDC World Darts Championship	912,431	Quite obviously, the greatest sport in the world.
8	Mufasa: The Lion King	867,542
9	Marco (2024 film)	853,485
10	Wicked (2024 film)	808,877
11	Luke Littler	793,804	This English darts player beat Dutchman Michael van Gerwen to win #7, after losing in last year's final to World No. 1 Luke Humphries. And he can't even legally have a pint to celebrate his win as he's only 17 years-old, poor lad, although on the plus side he's managed to walk home with 500 grand in prize money.
12	Avicii	782,949	Six years after this Swedish DJ ended his life at a young age, Netflix remembered Tim Bergling with two releases, a recording of his last live performance in 2016, Avicii: My Last Show (Commons doesn't have a picture of that show, but does of Avicii at the same place a year before, so it's depicted to the left), and a documentary on his life, Avicii – I'm Tim.
13	2025 New Orleans truck attack	782,815	At around 3:15 a.m. on January 1, a man drove a pickup truck into a crowd celebrating the New Year in New Orleans, then engaged in a shootout with police before being shot dead. Fifteen people were killed, including the perpetrator (identified as Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, pictured) and 35 more wounded. According to investigators, the perpetrator had been radicalized in 2024, and pledged allegiance to Islamic State in the minutes before the attack.
14	Amy Carter	774,947	The only daughter of #2 and #22, and their fourth child overall, she became known for activism against apartheid and US foreign policy in Central America. She later served as a member of the board of counselors on the Carter Center, established by her father.
15	Norovirus	764,299	Cases have risen in the United States of the "winter vomiting disease" that is the country's leading cause of foodborne illness, with the first week of December alone having 91 occurrences, following reports that the norovirus had outbreaks in three cruise ships. Warnings have been issued to wash hands and avoid possibly contaminated food.
16	List of highest-grossing Indian films	749,008
17	Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (film)	742,290
18	Jeff Baena	734,600	The first celebrity death of 2025 was this independent filmmaker who followed co-writing I Heart Huckabees with writing and directing in five unusual films (four comedies and the psychological drama Horse Girl), and was found dead at home at just 47, from a suicide by hanging.
19	Bob Dylan	733,232	The 1960s folk rock singer-songwriter and Nobel Prize laureate Bob Dylan's career has been featured in the new biopic A Complete Unknown starring Timothée Chalamet as Dylan. Directed by James Mangold, the film follows the start of Dylan's career from the early '60s until the "Electric Dylan controversy" in 1965. The film has received generally positive reviews but hasn't done too well at the box office yet
20	Deaths in 2024	687,680	The year ended on a Tuesday, so 3 days (probably helped by the addition of #1) were enough for the 53rd appearance of the death list before its demotion to redirect, while still finishing as the most viewed page of 2024. (ironically, Deaths in 2025, which will be a constant presence in the next editions, couldn't enter this one, finishing at #27)
21	Aubrey Plaza	675,668	As the image to the left shows, this actress, seen last year in both My Old Ass and Megalopolis, became the widow of #18. Plaza met Baena in 2011 in the middle of her breakthrough role of April Ludgate, and after starring in his directorial debut Life After Beth as an undead girlfriend, went on to appear in all his other movies other than Horse Girl.
22	Rosalynn Carter	657,450	The wife of #2 and mother of #14, she became a key figure in her husband's political career, with Jimmy calling her an "equal partner". She often sat in at meetings, and represented her husband in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders, eschewing the "official hostess" roles played by many other First Ladies. After leaving the White House in 1981, Carter co-founded the Carter Center, and became a leading advocate for women's rights and mental health. She and her husband received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999. Carter died in November 2023, thirteen months before Jimmy.
23	T.O.P	641,437	T.O.P is a South Korean rapper who joined #2 as a new cast member, playing a rapper named "Thanos" with drug issues, who fell from grace due to a cryptocurrency scam. Before venturing into acting, T.O.P was a rapper, including as the lead rapper of the best-selling boy band BigBang. He fell from grace due to a conviction for smoking marijuana, in a country with some of the strictest drug laws in the world.
24	Linda Lavin	635,309	This American actress died at age 87 on December 29. She leaves a shelf filled with awards: three Drama Desk Awards, two Golden Globes, two Obies, and a Tony, not to mention nominations for a Daytime Emmy and a Primetime Emmy. She made her television debut in Rhoda and recurred in Barney Miller (1975–1976), but it was the title role as a waitress at a roadside diner in Alice (1976–1985) that most people remember. This gave her the Primetime Emmy nomination (suck it, Ruth Gordon!) and two consecutive Golden Globe wins. Her Tony was for her role as the mother in Neil Simon's Broadway Bound (1987), and she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2010.
25	Gladiator II	633,114	Keeping off Jo Yu-ri, who plays a pregnant contestant in #2, is a very resilient epic that while eclipsed by #10 and a few other movies in theaters - while still in the American top 10, Gladiator II has yet to reach the $465.5 million box office of the original, and the studio will possibly lose some money given the huge budget of over $200 million - but clearly struck a chord with viewers, even those who never asked for a sequel, with the article downright being one of Wikipedia's most viewed of the year. And it was emotional hearing this over the credits again.