Asklemmy

Semi-serious answer. Greeks like Homer and Euripades and Virgil, the bible, Shakespeare. Lots of Western pop culture is a rehash of old stuff.

Answering the question more as you likely intended. Pokemon. Harry Potter. Star Wars. The MCU.

From what I suspect is due to my personal bubble, Star Trek; ST pops up several times per week in my life. And Twilight, I've got a group of friends who are queer and will jam a Team Alice or KStew reference in at every opportunity. It seems like the rest of the world has moved on from Twilight love and Twilight hate, but this group is keeping the discourse alive.

The big ones that really cross at least a few age brackets, have wide general recognition and probably aren't going anywhere in the near future (I may take some liberties with what I consider to be a franchise) in no particular order-

Star wars

James Bond

Lord of the rings

Sherlock Holmes

Batman

Superman

Spiderman

Mission Impossible

Mario

Zelda

Pokemon

Indiana Jones

Back to the Future

The Karate Kid

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Friday the 13th

Child's Play

It

Rambo

Rocky

Jurassic Park

The Matrix

The Terminator

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Transformers

The Simpsons

Barbie

GI Joe

He-Man/Masters of the universe

Mickey Mouse

Toy Story

Looney Tunes

King Kong

Godzilla

Planet of the Apes

Mad Max

The Muppets

The Godfather

Ghostbusters

Alien

Star Trek

Robocop

Frankenstein

Dracula

Tarzan

Conan the Barbarian

Jaws

Harry Potter

The Incredible Hulk

The Dollars Trilogy

Sesame Street

The Hannibal Lecter series

MASH

I think in general, most people have at least heard of these properties, would probably recognize at least a few of the main characters, objects, logos, memes, quotes, the theme song, etc. they've probably made some reference to them, and could give at least a vague explanation about what they're about or what the major themes are whether or not they've actually seen/read the source material

In general, I'm kind of counting a franchise as something that has had at least 3 major installments, iterations, episodes, series, remakes, reboots, etc. so a stand alone book, movie, etc. wouldn't count, nor would a book or movie and a sequel, a book and a movie adaptation, etc. A book, a movie adaptation, and a reboot movie would, a film trilogy would,a tv series would, a movie that's been rebooted/remade a couple times would.

Barbie feels like a weird one on this list to me, unlike GI Joe who's had pretty big movies and cartoons and such that make it pretty hard to argue that it's a franchise, most of Barbie's notoriety comes from the dolls themselves and I'd be kind of hesitant to label a line of toys as a franchise instead of a brand, sure there's been animated movies and video games and such, but none of them had really been particularly noteworthy. And I wouldn't feel quite right labeling, for example, Lego as a franchise despite having had pretty considerable success with movies and video games and such. But the character of Barbie, branding, marketing, etc. kind of puts her in the same league as Mickey mouse and I just felt like she belonged on the list.

Some of the classic characters - Frankenstein, Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, are arguably not really a franchise, there's not necessarily one company or person who owns their likeness and is marketing them, but they loom large enough in the public consciousness that I think they deserve to be mentioned in this list as well

I tried to keep this relatively universal, though I'm sure my biases as a cis straight white American millennial male showed through in places. There's a lot of franchises that form pillars of pop culture for specific demographics but not necessarily in general, and I tried to stay away from them, but a few of them just felt significant enough to me to warrant inclusion, in particular I kind of question how much general appeal He-Man has, for example, but I feel like if you say "He-Man" everyone has a mental image of the character seared into their brain (personally, I'm not sure I've ever even seen a whole episode of He-Man or really engaged with any masters of the universe media in general, but there he is in my brain and I don't really know how he got there)

Lord of the rings, Star Trek, James Bond, Sherlock Homes, Super Mario and Grand Theft Auto

I'd add game of Thrones. It was a cultural phenomenon when it came out. Oh, and the Simpsons.

Alien because of HR Giger's iconic art style, among other things. Also Frank Herbert's Dune, the first planned film adaptation of which Giger also worked on (sometimes considered as the best movie that was never made). In addition to the cultural influence that the book series already had, Dune also more or less spawned the real-time strategy computer game genre (with Westwood Studios' Dune II).

Harry Potter, Grand Theft Auto and Fallout (from the third one on).

The Simpsons

Star Wars

LOTR

MCU / DC (both franchises are huge and span decades)

Barbie ( girls have been playing with these dolls and following their trends for generations)

Disney Classics (not sure if this counts as a franchise?)

I can think of at least ten more franchises that are solid and influential but that either need a couple more decades or a bigger following to match the aforementioned ones

Twilight and Supernatural. Guess they kick-started shows like True Blood and Teen Wolf.

This is an impossible question to answer. But, I'll give it a shot anyway. I've expanded the meaning of "franchise" to include "all properties sublicensable for the purposes of profiteering."

If "popular culture" refers to the recognizable and persistent elements of living in society that the majority people share in common without having to communicate that recognition, I'd regard the following franchises as having broad impact worldwide:

• McDonalds/Subway and all attendant advertising as a signpost for food. Franchises abound.

• Esso/Shell/BP as gateways to modern conveniences and transportation. Every gas station, residence, farm house, hen house, outhouse, and dog house is connected to these franchises in some way.

• G4S/Securitas/Garda as the front line protecting the 'haves' from the 'have-nots'. Franchises abound.

• Most athletic, luxury vehicle, and brands as the status symbols they want themselves to be. Franchisees promote the brands as a means of collecting clients.

If, on the other hand, "popular culture" is, 'traditions and material culture of a particular society. In the modern West, pop culture refers to cultural products such as music, art, literature, fashion, dance, film, cyberculture, television, and radio that are consumed by the majority of a society's population. ... types of media that have mass accessibility and appeal' (ThoughtCo.) then the following are some fairly strong indicators of popular culture:

• Hello Kitty (be pleasant)

• Pokémon (pursue goals)

• Superman/Batman (masculinity, vigilantism)

• Paw Patrol (institutions are essential)

• the Olympics (do athletics)

• Michael Jordan (be excellent)

• Mickey Mouse (dream big)

• Star Wars/The Bible (G vs. E)

The ones I wish would take hold and have more of an influence:

• X-men (biodiversity is good)

• the Expanse

• Battlestar Galactica (genocide, rebellion, impersonation, terrorism, coups d'état, civil war, infidelity, succession, military conflict, asymmetrical warfare, treason, mutiny, pirate broadcasts, nuclear warfare... and that's just the first half of the series)

• Tony's Chocolonely (ethical economics)

Taylor Swift, Star Wars, McDonald's.

Disney, NFL, NBA, Coca-Cola,

pop culture changes over time so the answer is going to change over time.