Pope Francis, Jane Goodall, Robert Redford: Notable figures who died in 2025

The year 2025 saw the closing chapters of some of the most influential lives of the century.

From the transformative papacy of Pope Francis to the pioneering conservation work of Jane Goodall, the world said goodbye to icons who did not just witness history but shaped it.

Here’s a look back at some of the most notable figures who died in 2025.

Religion

“How much harm the women and men of the Church do when they erect walls,” Pope Francis said late in life. “Rigidity is a sin that often enters into clerics.”

The first Latin American pontiff shunned much of the papacy’s pomp, softened Catholic attitudes towards homosexuality, and put more women in senior roles than any predecessor.

More than 250,000 people attended his funeral in April, according to the Vatican.

“Your name it is heard in high places; you know the Aga Khan,” British singer-songwriter Peter Sarstedt sang in 1969.

Karim Al Husseini, the fourth Aga Khan, died in February. The wealthy racehorse owner was the hereditary spiritual leader of 15 million Ismaili Muslims.

Science

The global activist, who turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest to protect the environment, died in October.

Commander of Apollo 13, NASA's failed 1970 mission to the Moon that was immortalised in a film starring Tom Hanks.

Biologist whose discovery of the structure of DNA ushered in the age of genetics.

Cinema

Hollywood’s quintessential leading man starred in The Sting, Out Of Africa and All The President’s Men. As the founder of the annual Sundance Film Festival, he was also an influential supporter of independent cinema. He ‍died in September.

Diane Keaton’s roles ranged from ​the tormented wife of a mob boss in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather to a kooky Midwesterner in Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. She died in October.

The star of movies The French Connection and Unforgiven retired from acting some 20 years ago.

He, his wife, Ms Betsy Arakawa, and one of their dogs were found dead in their home in February. Hackman, who was in an advanced state of Alzheimer’s, died of heart disease ‍and other factors likely days after Ms Arakawa, his primary caregiver, died of a rare virus spread by mice, according to autopsy results.

The writer and director made haunting movies The Elephant Man and Mulholland Drive, as well as the TV series Twin Peaks, a surrealist murder mystery. He died in January.

The Tunisian-born star of Italian cinema featured in Federico Fellini's 8½ and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West. She died in September.

Known for playing Iceman in Top Gun, Jim Morrison in The Doors and Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever, the actor died of pneumonia in April. He had been in poor health for years due to throat cancer.

Terence Stamp was on the verge of becoming a tantric sex teacher at ​an ashram in India when, in 1977, he heard that he was ​being considered for the Superman film. "I was on the night flight the next day," Stamp later recalled.

Getting the role of the arch-villain General Zod in that movie made him a star. He died in August.

The director of When Harry Met Sally and The Princess Bride was found dead with his wife, Michele, 68, in their Los Angeles home in December. Their son Nick Reiner has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder over the stabbings.

Sports

The heavyweight boxing champion lost his first title to Muhammad Ali in their famous 1974 fight in Kinshasa – “The Rumble in the Jungle”. 

The bleach-blond, mahogany-tanned behemoth became the face of professional wrestling in the 1980s, helping transform the mock combat sport from a seedy spectacle into family-friendly entertainment worth billions of dollars. He died in July.

The Portuguese soccer player died in July when the Lamborghini he was in veered off the road and burst into flames. Just one month earlier, he had lifted the Premier League trophy for Liverpool.

Pietrangeli, Italy’s greatest tennis player before Jannik Sinner, was a master on clay.

Literature

The Czech-born British playwright dazzled with verbal gymnastics. He died in November.

A leading light in Latin American fiction, the Peruvian author and would-be ‍president won the Nobel Prize for literature in 2010. He died in April.

Author of the bestselling novel The Day Of The Jackal.

British author whose 1980s bestsellers were a blend of sex, satire and class-based snobbery.

Music

The Prince of Darkness fronted the heavy metal band Black Sabbath in the 1970s. His death in July led to an outpouring of grief in Birmingham, the English city where he grew up.

The co-founder of the Beach Boys created some of rock’s most enduring songs, Wouldn’t It Be Nice ​and Good Vibrations. He died in June.

Her covers of ballads The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song topped the charts in the 1970s. She died in February.

The Jamaican singer, who, along with Bob Marley, brought reggae to a global audience, ⁠died in November.

Leader of 1960s funk band Sly and the Family Stone.

The trailblazing neo-soul singer died in October after a prolonged battle with cancer, his family said.

The singer of As Tears Go By was the voice of Britain’s swinging 60s. She died in January.

He wrote a song with his future wife on the day they first met. Over the next 60 years, they never stopped making music together. Bergman, one half of one of the greatest American songwriting duos, died in July.

Business

For the Italian designer, who died in September, elegance meant simplicity. That principle would produce bestselling minimalist suits and turn his eponymous brand into a conglomerate worth billions of dollars. 

His will, which instructs heirs to sell a large part of the Armani group, set off a feeding frenzy.

Charismatic Irish entrepreneur whose team gave driver Michael Schumacher his Formula One debut in 1991.

He started the global delivery company FedEx with 14 small planes in 1973. By the time he resigned as CEO in 2022, FedEx operated some 700 aircraft and 86,000 vehicles.

Journalism

The Israeli military fired on a hospital in the Gaza Strip on Aug 25. Five journalists, including Reuters cameraman Hussam al-Masri, died in the attack. Their deaths are among some 200 journalist killings by Israel that it has yet to fully explain. 

As a Reuters correspondent, Grey was detained for over two years in 1960s China. That experience shaped ​the rest of his life. 

The journalist bore witness to some of the 20th century's greatest crimes, from the anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany to the racism of apartheid South Africa.

Politics

One of the most powerful vice-presidents in US history, Mr Cheney was a driving force behind the invasion of Iraq in 2003. He died in November.

The political activist and vociferous debater was credited with building Mr Donald Trump's base among younger voters. His assassination in September set off a pro-Trump crackdown affecting more than 600 Americans.

The former head of France’s leading far-right party died in January. 

In 2015, his daughter and successor Marine Le Pen had him excluded from the organisation for saying once more that the Nazi gas ‌chambers were “merely a detail” of World War II history. After his death, she said she would “never forgive” herself for that decision.

As prime minister of Japan he apologised for the country’s actions during World War II.

Some others who died in 2025

Ace Frehley, 74 – Lead guitarist of band Kiss

Angie Stone, 63 – US soul singer-songwriter

Barbie Hsu, 48 – Taiwanese actor

Chen Ning Yang, 103 – Chinese theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize laureate

Chuck Mangione, 84 – US flugelhorn player known for hit Feels So Good

Cleo Laine, 97 – British jazz singer

Connie Francis, 87 – US singer who topped the charts in ‍the 1950s and 1960s

David Johansen, 75 – Lead singer of band The New York Dolls

Diane Ladd, 89 – US actor

Etienne-Emile Baulieu, 96 – French inventor of the abortion pill

Garth Hudson, 87 – Keyboardist of rock group The Band

Gary “Mani” Mounfield, 63 – Bassist of band The Stone Roses

George Wendt, 76 – Actor who ​played Norm Peterson on Cheers

Joan Bennett Kennedy, 89 – Model, concert pianist and sister-in-law of John F. Kennedy

Jochen Mass, 78 – German F1 racer and Le Mans winner

Jorge Costa, 53 – Former captain of Porto football team

Julian McMahon, 56 – Australian actor in Charmed and Nip/Tuck

June Lockhart, ​100 – US actor who played Ruth Martin on Lassie

Katharine Worsley, 92 – Britain's Duchess of Kent known for her Wimbledon link

Kim Yong Nam, 97 – North Korea’s former ceremonial head of state

Lalo Schifrin, 93 – Argentine composer of Mission: Impossible theme

Leonard Lauder, 92 – Art collector and billionaire heir to Estee Lauder

Michael Madsen, 67 – US actor in Reservoir Dogs and Kill Bill: Volume 2

Michelle Trachtenberg, 39 – US actor who played Buffy’s sister on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Richard Chamberlain, 90 – US actor and singer

Ricky Hatton, 46 – British boxer

Sam Rivers, 48 – Bassist of band Limp Bizkit

Sirikit, 93 – Thailand’s Queen Mother and wife of the country’s longest-reigning monarch

Sophie Kinsella, 55 – British author of bestselling Shopaholic novels