Breakthrough of the Year

Not since Frozen in 2013 has an animated film been so omnipresent in our lives. Backed by an alternately catchy and profound pop soundtrack, the 95-minute KPop Demon Hunters tells the story of a K-pop trio called Huntr/x (pronounced Huntrix) whose members, Rumi, Mira, and Zoey, protect the world from demons who feed on human souls. They use their music to strengthen the honmoon, an invisible shield that keeps the demons out. The secret that lead singer Rumi is hiding beneath her couture ensembles—that her skin bears the patterns of her demon father—gives way to a nuanced message of self-love over shame.

The movie’s appeal seems self-evident in retrospect: cool girls in sick costumes, singing full-throated anthems about self-acceptance that also happen to be instant earworms, matched by inventive, vibrant visuals. And all those elements floated in on the still rising wave of Korean cultural exports enjoying global popularity, from BTS to Blackpink, Parasite to Squid Game.

But its success was hardly inevitable. KPop Demon Hunters is an original story at a time of conservative reliance on familiar IP. It’s an animated film at a moment when nonfranchise animation is flagging at the box office. It leans heavily on specific cultural references and lacks bankable headlining stars. And it was no small risk, with a reported budget of around $100 million. While everyone who had a part in making it hoped it would find its audience, none foresaw just how big it would become.

Read about TIME's Breakthrough of the Year, KPop Demon Hunters here.

Entertainer of the Year

Leonardo DiCaprio, who has been nominated for seven Academy Awards and won one, has a knack for making the seemingly wrong choice that turns out to be completely right—perhaps just another way of saying he has good instincts and he knows when to follow them. He works with people he trusts; he invests in projects he believes in. But there are intangible factors too: he has a face we don’t tire of looking at. More than 30 years into a career built on making largely unpredictable bets, audiences still want to see him, maybe more now than ever—even as a washed-up revolutionary with Iron Butterfly facial hair, the character he plays in Paul Thomas Anderson’s shaggy-dog father-daughter odyssey One Battle After Another.

Read about TIME’s Entertainer of the Year, Leonardo DiCaprio, here.

CEO of the Year

The pilot of the world’s most powerful distraction machine is surprisingly mellow. He’s quiet-spoken, deliberative, hard to ruffle. He likes watching sports, going to his daughters’ dance recitals, and open white shirts, just normal stuff. His favorite candy is the not-very-exciting Butterfinger. If you ask him to be in your YouTube video, he’ll probably do it. He won’t be great in it, but neither will he be horrible. In an era when tech titans are also sometimes trying to win medals in Brazilian jiujitsu or dismantle a government agency or take tourists into space, Neal Mohan is focused on one thing. He just runs YouTube.

Read about TIME’s CEO of the Year, Neal Mohan, here.