The end of the year is a time to take stock — not just of what has happened to us, and the world, but also the absence of those we’ve lost.
My colleagues at The New York Times Magazine have a beautiful annual feature called The Lives They Lived, which looks at some of the famous and not-so-famous people who have died in the past year. This year’s featured obituaries include Max Frankel, the executive editor of The Times from 1986 to 1994, who helped start the tradition.
The lives they lived
Every year, The New York Times Magazine remembers some of the artists, innovators and thinkers we lost in the past year. Here is a selection, with links to read more.
Jane Goodall (born 1934)
In the beginning, Jane Goodall named the chimpanzees. This was controversial. It was 1960, back when scientists weren’t supposed to dignify the animals they studied with names — they were supposed to use numbers, to remain objective, to avoid anthropomorphism at all costs. (This is still largely the case.)
But Goodall wasn’t that kind of scientist. Technically, she wasn’t a scientist at all. She was 26, and her only degree was a certificate from secretarial school. In fact, it was partly this inexperience that inspired Goodall’s employer, the paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey, to send her off to study the wild chimps of Tanzania. Fresh eyes, and a novel approach, might finally penetrate the mysterious world of humanity’s closest nonhuman relatives.
This turned out to be true. — Sam Anderson
Anna Ornstein (born 1927)
Dr. Anna Ornstein survived Auschwitz-Birkenau at age 17. There, her father and grandmother were killed in the gas chambers. Her two brothers were pressed into labor for the Axis armies and never returned. Later, as a psychoanalyst, she published academic writing that sometimes took a personal turn and held a muted yet unmistakable rage. That anger was not focused on Hitler or the memory of especially cruel SS guards; it was aimed at a prevalent psychoanalytic perspective that she felt failed to see, let alone learn from, the experience of Holocaust survivors. — Daniel Bergner
David Lynch (born 1946)
When David Lynch and his younger brother, John, were kids, they were out biking near their home in Boise, Idaho, one evening when they saw a startling image. “Out of the darkness — it was so incredible — came this nude woman with white skin,” Lynch wrote in his memoir, “Room to Dream.” Her skin seemed to be the color of milk but she had a bloodied mouth. John cried, but David was fascinated. “It was very mysterious, like we were seeing something otherworldly,” he recalled.
That mingling of the familiar and unsettling, the quotidian and the uncanny, would characterize Lynch’s artistic career. A folksy trickster whose wholesome persona had little evident overlap with the horrors he brought to life on film, Lynch charmed audiences into exploring perverse evils and secret desires. Across an oeuvre that included 10 feature films, a television show and myriad musical projects, short films and prankish internet clips, his off-kilter perspective shined a light on the surreal violence that gathered at the periphery of the American dream. — Ismail Muhammad
Diane Keaton (born 1946)
When she arrived in the city at 19, the beloved eldest daughter in a family of four siblings who were raised in California, she desperately wanted to succeed, but she worried she wasn’t beautiful enough. She hadn’t yet taken possession of her expressive face or her offhand elegance. She soon fell in with a group of eccentric artists and met Woody Allen, whom she dated for a few years. He cast her in her breakout role, at age 31, as Annie Hall. The character is based on Keaton, and her indelible wardrobe — trench coats, fetching ties and bowler hats — was pulled from Keaton’s own closet. Annie revealed to the world Keaton’s essence: a conspiring warmth overlaid with a jangling, neurotic charm.
In short order, Keaton became a major star, playing a variety of complex roles — Theresa Dunn in “Looking for Mr. Goodbar” and Louise Bryant in “Reds” — and having love affairs with Warren Beatty and Al Pacino. She admired these men all her life, writing sharp portraits of them in her memoirs, but she seemed to blame herself for failing to settle into a long-term partnership. This is a leitmotif in Keaton’s writing: a sense that she was inept at intimacy and needed to fix herself, until the moment she became a mother. — Sasha Weiss
MORE TOP NEWS
-
Pope Leo XIV, in his first Christmas message as pontiff, urged world leaders to pursue dialogue, peace and solidarity over war.
-
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine presented a revised peace plan with security guarantees backed by the United States, but analysts say Russia is unlikely to accept it.
-
North Korea unveiled the completed hull of what it calls a nuclear-powered submarine, as tensions rose over South Korea’s submarine plans and U.S. naval deployments in the region.
-
Tarique Rahman, a leading contender for prime minister, returned to Bangladesh after 17 years in exile to campaign ahead of elections.
-
After officials called the presidential race in Honduras for Nasry Asfura, whom President Trump endorsed, his rival disputed the result.
-
An annual Christmas Eve concert at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was canceled by its host after a board appointed by Trump added his name to the building.
-
A powerful Christmas Day rainstorm flooded California roadways, causing mudslides and knocking out power. Officials warned that holiday travel could be hazardous.
MORNING READ
Over the past two years, extremist Israeli settlers have established a record number of new outposts in the occupied territory. Village by village, the idea of a Palestinian state is withering away in the West Bank.
Armed Israeli settlers, often protected by the military, harass and attack Palestinian villagers. Across the West Bank, there is desperation among Palestinians as they watch the takeover of their lands at a pace never seen before. They fear that the changes are already becoming irreversible.
The Times spent more than two months in a dozen villages in the West Bank, meeting with Palestinian families, local officials, farmers and young human rights activists. We tried to speak to settlers near two of the West Bank villages that have been the targets of such pressure. None were willing to speak with us. Read more.
AROUND THE WORLD
The best music that you (maybe) haven’t heard
If you’ve been reading pop music “best of 2025” lists, you could be forgiven for thinking music fans worldwide listen only to Taylor Swift, Drake and Bad Bunny. That’s far from the case. One of the joys of my job covering European culture is discovering artists who are relatively unknown outside their home countries.
In Norway, for instance, one of this year’s big new acts was Tobias Sten, a country artist who sings about heartbreak like a lonely Norwegian cowboy. And in Belgium, the year’s big record was Pommelien Thijs’s “Atlas,” a Swift-like tune about carrying the weight of a relationship on your shoulders.
In Italy, some of the biggest songs were rock ballads like Olly and Juli’s “Balorda Nostalgia” with more than 121 million plays on Spotify alone. Then there’s Oimara’s “Wackelknotakt,” a pounding dance tune about partying in middle age that has soundtracked many a drunken party in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
If you feel like you’d enjoy some French-Congolese rap, Swedish indie or Ukrainian rock in your life, here’s a playlist of some of the year’s big European artists for you. — Alex Marshall, who covers European culture
RECOMMENDATIONS
Celebrate: Our music critics chose 11 new holiday albums to make you gasp, laugh and sway.
Sweat: Here are 3 ways to make skiing a better workout.
Learn: Readers shared the small, practical acts of kindness that help them navigate grief.
Read: The winter holidays are an especially popular time to break up with a partner. We asked people around the world for their most striking parting words.
RECIPE
The classic Italian combination of aglio e olio (garlic and oil) finds a melodic expression in Parmesan-adorned baked potatoes. In this recipe, it’s the little things that make a big flavor impact: Use fresh parsley or chives, crushed red pepper that smells fruity, black peppercorns that you’ve toasted and cracked yourself (if you have the patience) and a flavorful extra-virgin olive oil.
WHERE IS THIS?
Where are these ancient caves?
TIME TO PLAY
Here are today’s Spelling Bee, Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.
You’re done for today. See you next week! — Katrin
We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at [email protected].
Katrin Bennhold is the host of The World, the flagship global newsletter of The New York Times.
The post Remembering Those Who Died This Year appeared first on New York Times.
