One of the biggest beauty symbols of the 20th century (even inspiring her own term, sex kitten), a French actress who between 1952 and 1973 was in 47 films, including And God Created Woman, The Truth and Viva Maria!, while also recording a few albums, and after moving away from the screen advocated for animal rights with the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, and got into hot water for controversial statements regarding Muslims, homosexuals, and even her own son. In any case, Bardot died at 91 right as the last week of 2025 started, leading to many tributes.
After Hugo Chávez died in 2013, this guy was promoted to president of Venezuela (#9). His government has been just as controversial and authoritarian as Chávez was, characterized by electoral fraud (the one in 2018 even had the Organization of American States trying to overturn the results, leading the leader of the opposition to attempt filling in, and a crisis ensued), human rights abuses, corruption, censorship and severe economic hardship. During the last year of Donald Trump’s first presidency, the US government offered $15 million for any information that would lead to Maduro’s arrest. The first of Trump’s second had that value raising to $50 million and multiple sanctions on Venezuela, before 2026 started with a military operation in Caracas (#7) that captured Maduro and his wife, who were sent to New York to be tried.
Netflix decided to turn a few New Year’s parties into watch parties for the extra-long series finale for one of their most successful shows, and also provided a limited theatrical release (selling over a million tickets and earning over $25 million!) to witness the main characters raiding the Upside Down to kill the evil Vecna and destroy the parallel dimension. While reception was mostly positive, there’s always something for certain viewers to complain about (this time around there was questioning about too many people surviving, as if those characters hadn’t suffered enough in 5 seasons and also needed to die!). And even if the show ended, a return to Hawkins is still expected with the animated spin-off Stranger Things: Tales from ’85, announced to be reminiscent of old Saturday-morning cartoons.
Jake Sully, who abandoned his humanity to join a race of giant blue cat-like aliens, still tries to prevent greedy humans from destroying the ecological paradise of Pandora. The subtitle Fire and Ash notes a new and popular feature, a tribe of fire-themed Na’vi led by Oona Chaplin as the cruel Varang, but viewers and critics alike found the movie quite similar to its predecessor The Way of Water, from the excessive length to again having a climax centered around destroying whalers. But given it still provided incredible spectacle, audiences still went in droves and made the whole Avatar trilogy be billion dollar movies (whether Fire and Ash will make enough to surpass Zootopia 2, currently at $1.6 billion, is to be seen; but it certainly won’t match the $2 billion of its predecessors – and a Chinese cartoon that was the highest-grossing movie of 2025, and you probably never heard of!).
Just like Iraq in 2003, the United States controversially go after a country with large oil reserves (#9) and an authoritarian government (#2). Covert operations and seizure of tankers happened in December, and on the night of January 2 Trump ordered aerial strikes, targeting antennas and active military bases around Venezuelan capital Caracas, and in the hours before dawn it was announced Maduro and his wife had been captured by US forces and were being flown to a trial in New York City.
After Zendaya took up tennis in Challengers, the other lead in Dune: Part 2, Timothée Chalamet is a table tennis player in Marty Supreme, done by half the brothers who did Uncut Gems (the other one went for a much more violent sport in The Smashing Machine). Widely acclaimed and already making the rounds in the awards circuit, the movie opened on Christmas in the United States, finishing its weekend at second behind #6 and having already recouped its budget with $71 million worldwide.
While it may seem unusual for an American environmental journalist and author to appear on the list, visitors most likely were drawn to her being a member of the Kennedy–Bouvier families and whether or not her death from acute myeloid leukemia at age 35 was attributed to the curse.
Just like the first list of 2025, the death list that stayed around all year managed one last entry before being turned into a redirect (unsurprisingly, the page will be the most viewed of 2025 in the Annual Report), while the new one that is certain to be a constant presence didn’t make it in.
The first back in 2016 opened with (after a brief scene of a scientist hunted by a monster) Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, Dustin Henderson and Will Byers playing Dungeons & Dragons in a basement in 1983. The 42nd and final ends on the same note: them and Lucas’s girlfriend Max Mayfield in another D&D campaign 6 years later, and as they leave the basement Mike’s sister Holly brings her friends to have them try the tabletop RPG.
This British actor got his start onstage at age 11 in 1999. His first listed onscreen role was in the 2007 film version of Sweeney Todd. Since then, his popularity has grown, especially appearing as in season 4 and five (#5) as the malevolent Vecna in #4.
For all that was said about 2025 being a bad year for Sydney Sweeney, between underperforming movies and a controversial ad campaign, she ended off well with The Housemaid. Like A Simple Favor it’s director Paul Feig making a book adaptation about a woman discovering dark secrets about the life of an affluent blonde. In this case, Sweeney is a woman fresh out of prison who accepts a job as a live-in housekeeper for a wealthy family, and while getting closer to the husband (Brandon Sklenar), she gets uncomfortable with how unhinged the wife (Amanda Seyfried) seems. Praised for its acting and plotting, The Housemaid performed alright during the holidays, opening behind #6 and Zootopia 2 and having a decent second weekend in spite of #8 taking third place, having already turned profitable with its worldwide gross of $82 million.
Morocco receives the continent’s best national football teams, in a tournament that will roll until January 18. The round of 16 started and has 7 of the African teams of the upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup – as well as DR Congo, which might join them – but not the 8th given Cape Verde didn’t even qualify for the final tournament.
ChatGPT had enough views to take this spot, but let’s already start its exclusion. Instead, here’s the portrayer of Will Byers, who starts #4 being kidnapped by interdimensional monsters but by its final season (#5) has used the experience to exploit the creatures of the Upside Down. The penultimate episode of the show had Will coming out to the rest of the gang, showing he shares Schnapp’s sexuality. Some conservatives did not approve and review bombed the episode.
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