2023 pop culture in photos

It was an interesting year in Hollywood. Let's start with a word few people expected to emerge: Barbenheimer. On the same day, the films 'Barbie' and 'Oppenheimer,' about completely different topics, premiered. People who saw both movies in one day went from a pink world to a mushroom cloud.

Barbie took over movie theaters by surprise, turning the movie about the iconic doll into the biggest box office hit of the year.

‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ could be considered the film of the 2023 awards season. It won 7 Oscars out of 11 nominations, among many other awards

Here we see Ke Huy Quan, Michelle Yeoh, and Jamie Lee Curtis with their Oscars for 'Everything Everywhere All At Once.' They are joined by the winner of Best Actor, Brendan Fraser, for his role in 'The Whale'. (There was some discussion about Fraser's outfit for that film, by the way.)

On May 6, 2023, the entire world saw the coronation of Charles III as king of Great Britain. It had been nearly 70 years since his mother, the late Elizabeth II, had been crowned Queen.

For several days in June, people around the globe focused on a corner of the North Atlantic Ocean where the site of the Titanic wreckage saw another tragedy, one century later. The submersible 'Titan,' which enables people to look at the Titanic on the bottom of the sea, went missing.

The men stuck in the submersible when it imploded, were Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, the company organizing the exploration of the Titanic; the British adventurer Hamish Harding, the French maritime and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and the Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman.

Artificial Intelligence managed incredible advancements in 2023. It created texts and (moving) images, to the wonder of some and the shock of others. According to Wikimedia, articles about ChatGPT were the most-read entries in 2023.

For several months, Hollywood went on strike, amid a growing concern that AI might become a competition for screenwriters and actors.

Meanwhile, TIME magazine named Taylor Swift as their Person of the Year. The American singer and songwriter broke in 2023 a record held by The Beatles by having three albums topping the charts in a single year.

Donald Trump became the first former or current US President to be indicted. The mugshot, portrayed here, went all over the world.

The fact that he got arrested and that there are several cases of business and election fraud against him, not to mention the charges involving his theft of secret government papers, does not deter Trump from running for president in 2024.

In the world of sports, 115 million people in the United States watched the Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl.

2023 was also the year that India became the most populous country in the world, with 1.4 billion inhabitants. It used to be China, but now Indians are in the majority.

Another record was broken, as 2023 saw the highest temperatures ever across the world. Concerns about climate change continue, with droughts in all continents (including the Amazon River in Brazil, pictured).

In 2023, we lost star actors like Ryan O'Neal, Raquelle Welch, Tom Sizemore, Andre Braugher (image), and many more.

Singers who died included Tony Bennett, Sinead O'Connor, and Tina Turner, the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll (image).

Television and pop culture suffered a major blow with the untimely death of Matthew Perry at the age of 54. Perry made millions laugh in the TV show 'Friends.' The cause of his death was drowning in his jacuzzi, likely caused by the effects of ketamine, a drug he was using to treat depression.

In Italy, the death of Silvio Berlusconi on June 12 marked the end of an era for politics, both in Italy and across the European Union.

The death of former US State Secretary Henry Kissinger at the age of 100 sparked the debate about his polarizing legacy and the influence of US foreign policy during the Cold War.

In Argentina, a rock star with a chainsaw became president. Javier Milei is ultraliberal and populist, and he's expected to bring radical changes to the country.

In Europe, Manchester City won its first Champions League against Inter Milan.

Lionel Messi left European football and cashed a big check in American soccer. His transfer to Inter Miami is expected to set a trend among near-retired football players of high status.

The other big name in football/soccer is Cristiano Ronaldo. After joining the Saudi team Al Nassr, he became the best-paid athlete in the world. His move to Arab football also inspired others to leave European competitions behind.