The World's
Greatest
Plays
Theatre's essential canon — ranked by monthly views
This month's top 3
The full list
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1Tragedy
Doctor Faustus
A thrilling and unsettling play about ambition, vanity and the terror of realising too late that knowledge cannot save you from yourself.
3 views -
2Dramatic Comedy
Top Girls
A furious, brilliant play about ambition, feminism and the price women pay for success inside systems that were never built for them.
3 viewsWatch -
3Tragedy
King Lear
A terrifying study of power, ageing and human cruelty that strips civilisation down to the bone and somehow finds tenderness there too.
2 viewsWatch -
4Dramatic Comedy
The Cherry Orchard
A quietly heartbreaking masterpiece about people watching their world disappear in real time. Funny, delicate and far more savage than its reputation suggests.
2 viewsWatch -
52 viewsWatch
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6Social Realism
A Doll’s House
A play that changed theatre forever by asking a terrifyingly simple question: what happens when a woman decides her own life matters more than the role she has been assigned?
1 viewsWatch -
7Tragedy
Antigone
An unnervingly modern tragedy about political power, moral conviction and the terrible cost of refusing to bend.
1 viewsWatch -
8Tragedy
Death and the King’s Horseman
A thrilling and devastating play about duty, colonial violence and spiritual responsibility that still feels dangerously alive.
1 viewsWatch -
9Tragedy
Hamlet
Possibly the greatest play ever written about grief, paralysis and the terrifying difficulty of knowing what the right thing actually is.
1 views -
10Dramatic Comedy
Lysistrata
A filthy, furious anti war comedy that still feels shockingly alive more than two thousand years after it was written.
1 views -
11Tragedy
Medea
A furious, terrifying tragedy that forces an audience to sit inside betrayal, grief and revenge with absolutely nowhere to hide.
1 viewsWatch -
12Tragedy
Othello
A terrifying study of jealousy, manipulation and prejudice that turns intimate human weakness into full scale tragedy with unbearable precision.
1 views -
13Tragedy
The Bacchae
A savage and hypnotic tragedy about repression, ecstasy and the terrifying consequences of believing reason alone can control human nature.
1 views -
14Political Theatre
The Crucible
A furious and frightening play about fear, power and public shame that still feels dangerously close to the modern world.
1 viewsWatch -
15Tragedy
The Glass Menagerie
A fragile, piercing memory play about love, shame and escape that captures the sadness of family life with almost unbearable precision.
1 viewsWatch -
16Romantic Comedy
The Merchant of Venice
A brilliant and deeply uncomfortable play about prejudice, money and power whose greatest strength lies in its refusal to offer easy moral certainty.
1 views -
17Social Realism
The Seagull
A beautiful and painfully funny play about artistic failure, unreturned love and the terrible gap between the lives people dream of and the lives they actually live.
1 viewsWatch -
1817th Century
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare’s most joyful play becomes stranger and wiser with age, a romantic comedy that understands how irrational love can feel and how fragile happiness really is.
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19Tragedy
A Streetcar Named Desire
A feverish, devastating portrait of desire, class and self deception that still feels dangerous every time it is performed.
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20Romantic Comedy
Cyrano de Bergerac
A thrilling romantic comedy about wit, pride and longing that somehow feels intimate even at its most theatrical.
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21Social Realism
Dancing at Lughnasa
A tender and devastating memory play about family, freedom and the brief moments of joy that survive even in lives shaped by sacrifice.
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22Tragedy
Death of a Salesman
A brutal, compassionate portrait of a man destroyed by the dream he spent his life chasing, and still one of the greatest plays ever written about work, masculinity and failure.
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23Noh Theatre
Dōjōji
A hypnotic theatrical ghost story where jealousy becomes sacred terror and every movement feels charged with centuries of emotion.
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24Dramatic Comedy
Every Brilliant Thing
The funniest play about depression you will ever see, and one of the most honest things theatre has done with mental health in a generation.
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25Morality Play
Everyman
A strange, powerful medieval drama that strips a human life down to its essentials and asks what, if anything, remains when death arrives.
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26Musical Theatre
Hamilton
A thrilling reinvention of the historical musical that turns the founding of America into a story about ambition, legacy and the unbearable pressure to matter.
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27Tragedy
Hedda Gabler
A chilling and darkly funny study of boredom, power and repression, with one of the most fascinating women ever written for the stage at its centre.
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28Tragedy
Long Day’s Journey into Night
A devastating family drama that strips away every illusion about love, addiction and forgiveness until all that remains is raw human need.
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29Tragedy
Macbeth
A violent, hypnotic tragedy about ambition, guilt and political chaos that still feels dangerous every time it is performed.
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30Dramatic Comedy
Man and Superman
Shaw's longest, most argumentative and most exhilarating play — a romantic comedy about a man running from a woman, wrapped around a philosophical debate between Don Juan and the Devil.
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31Dramatic Comedy
Marx in Soho: A Play on History
A furious, funny and unexpectedly human solo play that drags Karl Marx out of history books and drops him directly into the chaos of modern life.
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32Tragedy
Miss Julie
A scorching psychological duel about sex, class and power that still feels dangerous more than a century after it was written.
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33Epic Theatre
Mother Courage and Her Children
A furious, darkly funny anti war play that strips conflict down to money, survival and human compromise with terrifying clarity.
