The 50 Greatest Plays of All Time

The following is an aggregate list sourced from over 480 "Greatest Books of All Time" lists curated by TheGreatestBooks. The full list can be found here. (updated as of 2/14/25)

  1. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (1600)
  2. Oedipus the King - Sophocles (429 BCE)
  3. Faust - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1808)
  4. Waiting for Godot - Samuel Beckett (1953)
  5. Antigone - Sophocles (441 BCE)
  6. First Folio - William Shakespeare (1623)
  7. King Lear - William Shakespeare (1608)
  8. Macbeth - William Shakespeare (1606)
  9. The Tempest - William Shakespeare (1623)
  10. Medea - Euripides (431 BCE)
  11. La Celestina - Fernando de Rojas (1499)
  12. Oresteia - Aeschylus (458 BCE)
  13. Oedipus at Colonus - Sophocles (401 BCE)
  14. A Doll's House - Henrik Ibsen (1879)
  15. Richard III - William Shakespeare (1592)
  16. The Cherry Orchard - Anton Chekhov (1904)
  17. Three Sisters - Anton Chekhov (1901)
  18. Electra - Sophocles (409 BCE)
  19. Life Is a Dream - Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1635)
  20. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare (1597)
  21. The Bacchae - Euripides (405 BCE)
  22. Uncle Vanya - Anton Chekhov (1897)
  23. Women of Trachis - Sophocles (450 BCE)
  24. Philoctetes - Sophocles (409 BCE)
  25. Ajax - Sophocles (440 BCE)
  26. A Streetcar Named Desire - Tennessee Williams (1947)
  27. Othello - William Shakespeare (1603)
  28. Death Of A Salesman - Arthur Miller (1949)
  29. Lysistrata - Aristophanes (411 BCE)
  30. Prometheus Bound - Aeschylus (455 BCE)
  31. Long Day's Journey Into Night - Eugene O'Neill (1956)
  32. Cyrano de Bergerac - Edmond Rostand (1897)
  33. Six Characters in Search of an Author - Luigi Pirandello (1921)
  34. The Persians - Aeschylus (471 BCE)
  35. The Clouds - Aristophanes (423 BCE)
  36. Tartuffe - Molière (1664)
  37. The Importance of Being Earnest - Oscar Wilde (1895)
  38. The Birds - Aristophanes (414 BCE)
  39. The Suppliants - Aeschylus (463 BCE)
  40. Seven Against Thebes - Aeschylus (467 BCE)
  41. Antigone - Jean Anouilh (1944)
  42. No Exit - Jean Paul Sartre (1944)
  43. Mother Courage and Her Children - Bertolt Brecht (1941)
  44. Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw (1913)
  45. The Recognition of Sakuntala - Kālidāsa (400 BCE)
  46. The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus - Christopher Marlowe (1604)
  47. The Seagull - Anton Chekhov (1896)
  48. The Works of Moliere - Molière (1666)
  49. Bohemian Lights - Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1920)
  50. Rameau's Nephew - Denis Diderot (1761)

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