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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JULIANNE MOORE
Brigitte Lacombe
Photography by Brigitte Lacombe

Janicza Bravo

FILMMAKER

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?

More sensitive than not.

DESCRIBE A RECENT CROSSROADS AT WHICH YOU FOUND YOURSELF.

I think I’m still at it. I’m in my 40s and the possibility that there’s gonna be less time on this side than there was on the other is ringing loud. It’s not fear of the end; it’s less room to get much done. Will I have done as much as I’d hoped? I’m trying my best to rearrange my outlook. I want to look back and feel proud.

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE OF IN YOUR INDUSTRY? LESS OF?

Less trepidation. Less math. Nurturing the unnurtured.

“I’m in my 40s and the possibility that there’s gonna be less time on this side than there was on the other is ringing loud. Will I have done as much as I’d hoped? I want to look back and feel proud.”

WHAT’S COMING UP FOR YOU IN 2024?

I’m feeling a bit allergic to the question of “what’s next.” I believe this is more a question of “what now.” There’s lots of writing in front of me, and I’m finishing a couple of TV shows that are meant to come out later this year.

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

I’d been regretting a creative choice I’d made that had taken some years out of me. I was beating myself up about having walked through the wrong door. Imagine there are a series of doors in front of you and you’ve picked the wrong one. I’d made a tally of every shit choice. Productive. I was raised to punish myself. The nice thing about getting older is a little more ease. So, rather than think I’d walked through the wrong door, I decided that I’d chosen a necessary lesson for the next chapter.

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ROSE BYRNE
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JULIANNE MOORE