Since its founding in 1923, Time magazine has been crowning the world’s pioneers and power brokers. The pub’s annual list of most influential people is more than 30 years old. And today, we get the 2026 edition.

Though “influential,” is a deliberately slippery metric, the TIME100 list aims to recognize needle-movers. Editors debate entries all year long , using only cultural sway as rubric. As a result, there are actors, doctors, CEOs, chefs, entrepreneurs, activists, athletes, and war criminals represented on the list. There are also three novelists, because literary culture isn’t dead.…