15 minutes of fame is short-lived, often ephemeral, media publicity or celebrity of an individual or phenomenon. The expression was coined by Andy Warhol, who said in 1968 that "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." The phenomenon is often used in reference to figures in the entertainment industry or other areas of popular culture, such as reality TV and YouTube. It is believed that the statement was an adaptation of a theory of Marshall McLuhan, explaining the differences of media, where TV differs much from other media using contestants.

The expression is a paraphrase of a line in Warhol's exhibition catalog for an exhibit at the Moderna Museet, in Stockholm from February to March 1968. The catalog read, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes." In 1979 Warhol reiterated his claim, "...my prediction from the sixties finally came true: In the future everyone will be famous for 15 minutes." Becoming bored with continually being asked about this particular statement, Warhol attempted to confuse interviewers by changing the statement variously to "In the future 15 people will be famous" and "In 15 minutes everybody will be famous."

15 Minutes is a 2001 film starring Robert De Niro, Edward Burns and Karel Roden. It is about a homicide detective and a fire marshal who must stop a couple of Eastern European murderers who are videotaping their crimes in hope of becoming famous. The film also stars Melina Kanakaredes and Kelsey Grammer. Its title is a reference to the famous Andy Warhol quotation, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

After getting out of prison, ex-convicts Emil Slovak (Karel Roden) and Oleg Razgul (Oleg Taktarov) travel to New York City to meet a contact in order to claim their part of a bank heist in Russia (or somewhere in the Czech Republic). Within minutes of arriving, Oleg steals a video camera. They go to the brownstone apartment of their old partner Milos Karlova (Vladimir Mashkov) and his wife Tamina, and demand their share. When Milos admits that he spent it, an enraged Emil kills him with a kitchen knife, then breaks Tamina's neck as Oleg tapes it with his new camera. The couple's neighbor, Daphne Handlova (Vera Farmiga), witnesses everything, but she escapes before they can get to her. To cover up the crime, they douse the bodies in acetone, carefully position them on the bed, and burn down the apartment, intending to pass it off as an accident.

Year 15 (XV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Flaccus (or, less frequently, year 768 Ab urbe condita). The denomination 15 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.