Publishing is full of rankings, from power lists to best-dressed lists to under-40 lists. The CULT100 is different. There is just one criterion for inclusion—but it’s a high bar.

To qualify, a candidate must be actively shaping and changing our culture in real time. The people on this list represent five generations and hail from the worlds of food, publishing, art, fashion, activism, and entertainment. To put this group together, CULTURED‘s editors leveraged the full strength of our network, tapping artists, writers, and cultural leaders to tell us who they look to when they want to feel challenged, hopeful, and inspired.

Some members of the CULT100 are household names; others have been working behind the scenes to make possible the cultural encounters that stop us in our tracks. In a time of binary thinking, the creators featured in this year’s list are embracing contradiction, bouncing willfully between disciplines, and refusing to take no for an answer. They have guts, vision, and a potent cocktail of realism and optimism. None of them is shying away from the anxiety of our moment. Instead, they are thinking big, sharing generously, and embodying courage. The good news is, their work makes us all a little bit braver, too.

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Caroline Tompkins
Photography by Caroline Tompkins

Emma Cline

Writer

WHAT’S ONE BOOK, WORK OF ART, ALBUM, OR FILM THAT GOT YOU THROUGH AN IMPORTANT MOMENT IN YOUR LIFE?

As a child, I obsessively watched The Wizard of Oz. I think it was probably my first understanding that art could create a world beyond the one I knew.

WHAT’S COMING UP FOR YOU IN 2024?

I’m starting work on a new novel, which is always an interesting moment—you’re testing the floorboards of this idea and seeing if the structure will hold up for the long haul.

“I will read any trashy memoir or biography—groupies, drug-addled film producers, child stars.”

NAME AN INFLUENCE OF YOURS THAT MIGHT SURPRISE PEOPLE.

I will read any trashy memoir or biography—groupies, drug-addled film producers, child stars.

WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU SURPRISED YOURSELF IN YOUR WORK?

Every time I write, I’m looking to surprise myself—I want that element of unknowability or mystery. Even if I might know where a story begins, or have an idea of where I want the story to land, whatever happens in between is usually a surprise, almost like a dream—I want the unconscious to surface.

WHAT DO YOU THINK IS YOUR BIGGEST CONTRIBUTION TO CULTURE?

I don’t think of myself as contributing to the culture—I understand that idea, but I don’t find it a personally helpful or conducive framework for writing. I don’t really picture a life for the work beyond that intimacy with a single reader—otherwise I’d go crazy, I think.

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ROSE BYRNE
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JULIANNE MOORE