O Fortuna is a poem from Carmina Burana, a collection of Latin poems written in early 13th century. Fortuna is the goddess of fortune in Roman Mythology. German composer Carl Orff selected 24 poems from the collection and set them to new music between 1935 and 1936.

O Fortuna is the most famous movement from Orff's Carmina Burana composition, and opens and closes the cycle. Orff's setting of the poem has become immensely popular and has been performed by countless classical music ensembles as well as popular artists. It powerfully conveys the human condition of struggle.

The composition appears in numerous movies and television commercials and has become a staple in popular culture, setting the mood for dramatic or cataclysmic situations. For instance, it is used to portray the torment of Jim Morrison's drug addiction in the film The Doors. In 1991, when the group named Apotheosis produced a heavily re-sampled version of "O Fortuna", the estate of Carl Orff (who died in 1982) considered it was undignified that the Carmina Burana be reworked into popular culture, immediately and successfully sued to stop the distribution of the record.

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