Time Person of the Year 2018: Shortlist includes Trump, Putin, Khashoggi and separated migrant families

Recent selections include Silence Breakers of #MeToo movement and US president

Donald Trump was named 'Time' magazine's Person of the Year in 2016 and has featured on several covers (Getty)

Families separated at the border between the United States and Mexico are among the shortlist of finalists for Time magazine’s 2018 Person of the Year.

The title recognises the person or group who most influenced the news and the world over the last year – for better or worse.

Recent selections have included the Silence Breakers of the #MeToo movement and Donald Trump.

This year’s shortlist also features the US president, along with Russian president Vladimir Putin and special counsel Robert Mueller, who was a runner up for last year’s title, and is looking at Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Christine Blasey Ford, who accused then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault, also made the shortlist, as did March for our Lives activists who demonstrated across America for gun-control reforms following a mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, and Jamal Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October.

The list was rounded off by Black Panther director Ryan Coogler, South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, who has met his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un three times, and Meghan Markle, who married Prince Harry earlier this year.

K-pop sensation BTS won this year’s online reader’s poll for Time‘s Person of the Year, followed by planet Earth and the Thai cave divers.

Other figures include former first lady Michelle Obama, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and Brazil’s far-right new president, Jair Bolsonaro.

Time‘s 2018 Person of the Year will be revealed on Wednesday.