Variety / Getty / Adobe Stock With 8.5 million people spread over just 300 square miles, New York is the most populous city in America. Home to Broadway, Wall Street, the Met, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Comedy Cellar and, of course, the news media, New York is where the conversation starts and ends.
Variety’s 2026 New York Legends Power List comprises luminaries in the areas of film, television, music, media, sports, politics and comedy, from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and “The Odyssey” leads Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway to the Fox News brain trust and the New York Knicks. To make the list, candidates’ principal residence must be in New York — sorry, Trump! — and they need to have left an indelible impact on culture. Twenty-five years after the horrors of 9/11, New York is back in a big way.
Here are its power players.
-
Zohran Mamdani and Rama Duwaji
First Couple
New York City’s first Muslim and South Asian mayor is one of the most popular politicians in the country, and the Democratic Socialist provides daily fodder for newspaper columnists and cable news talk show hosts, here and abroad. Mamdani and wife Rama are lightning rods that have not only the eyes of New York but the nation upon them.
