The World's
Greatest
Plays

Theatre's essential canon — ranked by monthly views

This month's top 3

The full list

  1. 1
    Dramatic Comedy

    Marx in Soho: A Play on History

    By Howard Zinn · First performed in 1999

    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.

    16 views
  2. 2
    Social Realism

    The Wild Duck

    By Henrik Ibsen · First performed in 1884

    A complex study of truth and lies.

    11 views
    Watch
  3. 3
    Political Theatre

    The Crucible

    By Arthur Miller · First performed in 1953

    A furious and frightening play about fear, power and public shame that still feels dangerously close to the modern world.

    9 views
    Watch
  4. 4
    Tragedy

    The Glass Menagerie

    By Tennessee Williams · First performed in 1944

    A fragile, piercing memory play about love, shame and escape that captures the sadness of family life with almost unbearable precision.

    9 views
    Watch
  5. 5
    Tragedy

    King Lear

    By William Shakespeare · First performed in 1606

    A terrifying study of power, ageing and human cruelty that strips civilisation down to the bone and somehow finds tenderness there too.

    8 views
    Watch
  6. 6
    Dramatic Comedy

    Top Girls

    By Caryl Churchill · First performed in 1982

    A furious, brilliant play about ambition, feminism and the price women pay for success inside systems that were never built for them.

    7 views
    Watch
  7. 7
    17th Century

    A Midsummer Night’s Dream

    By William Shakespeare · First performed in 1600

    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.

    6 views
  8. 8
    Tragedy

    Doctor Faustus

    By Christopher Marlowe · First performed in 1592

    A thrilling and unsettling play about ambition, vanity and the terror of realising too late that knowledge cannot save you from yourself.

    6 views
  9. 9
    Tragedy

    Hamlet

    By William Shakespeare · First performed in 1603

    Possibly the greatest play ever written about grief, paralysis and the terrifying difficulty of knowing what the right thing actually is.

    6 views
  10. 10
    Tragedy

    Romeo and Juliet

    By William Shakespeare · First performed in 1597

    A play everyone thinks they already know until they see how violent, funny, reckless and emotionally overwhelming it actually is.

    6 views
    Watch
  11. 11
    Dramatic Comedy

    The Cherry Orchard

    By Anton Chekhov · First performed in 1904

    A quietly heartbreaking masterpiece about people watching their world disappear in real time. Funny, delicate and far more savage than its reputation suggests.

    6 views
    Watch
  12. 12
    Social Realism

    A Doll’s House

    By Henrik Ibsen · First performed in 1879

    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?

    5 views
    Watch
  13. 13
    Tragedy

    Death and the King’s Horseman

    By Wole Soyinka · First performed in 1975

    A thrilling and devastating play about duty, colonial violence and spiritual responsibility that still feels dangerously alive.

    5 views
    Watch
  14. 14
    Noh Theatre

    Dōjōji

    By Kan'ami · First performed in Unknown

    A hypnotic theatrical ghost story where jealousy becomes sacred terror and every movement feels charged with centuries of emotion.

    5 views
    Watch
  15. 15
    Dramatic Comedy

    Man and Superman

    By George Bernard Shaw · First performed in 1905

    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.

    5 views
    Watch
  16. 16
    Tragedy

    Othello

    By William Shakespeare · First performed in 1603

    A terrifying study of jealousy, manipulation and prejudice that turns intimate human weakness into full scale tragedy with unbearable precision.

    5 views
  17. 17
    Dramatic Comedy

    The Visit

    By Friedrich Dürrenmatt · First performed in 1956

    A viciously funny moral nightmare about money, justice and the terrifying ease with which ordinary people learn to excuse cruelty.

    5 views
  18. 18
    Tragedy

    A Streetcar Named Desire

    By Tennessee Williams · First performed in 1947

    A feverish, devastating portrait of desire, class and self deception that still feels dangerous every time it is performed.

    4 views
    Watch
  19. 19
    Tragedy

    Antigone

    By Sophocles · First performed in 441 BCE

    An unnervingly modern tragedy about political power, moral conviction and the terrible cost of refusing to bend.

    4 views
    Watch
  20. 20
    Tragedy

    Death of a Salesman

    By Arthur Miller · First performed in 1949

    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.

    4 views
    Watch
  21. 21
    Tragedy

    Miss Julie

    By August Strindberg · First performed in 1888

    A scorching psychological duel about sex, class and power that still feels dangerous more than a century after it was written.

    4 views
  22. 22
    Epic Theatre

    Mother Courage and Her Children

    By Bertolt Brecht · First performed in 1941

    A furious, darkly funny anti war play that strips conflict down to money, survival and human compromise with terrifying clarity.

    4 views
    Watch
  23. 23
    Dramatic Comedy

    Tartuffe

    By Molière · First performed in 1664

    A razor sharp comedy about hypocrisy, vanity and the dangerous pleasure of believing exactly what you want to hear.

    4 views
  24. 24
    Tragedy

    The Bacchae

    By Euripides · First performed in 405 BCE

    A savage and hypnotic tragedy about repression, ecstasy and the terrifying consequences of believing reason alone can control human nature.

    4 views
  25. 25
    Romantic Comedy

    The Merchant of Venice

    By William Shakespeare · First performed in 1598

    A brilliant and deeply uncomfortable play about prejudice, money and power whose greatest strength lies in its refusal to offer easy moral certainty.

    4 views
  26. 26
    Social Realism

    The Seagull

    By Anton Chekhov · First performed in 1896

    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.

    4 views
    Watch
  27. 27
    Dramatic Comedy

    Lysistrata

    By Aristophanes · First performed in 411

    A filthy, furious anti war comedy that still feels shockingly alive more than two thousand years after it was written.

    3 views
  28. 28
    Tragedy

    Medea

    By Euripides · First performed in 431 BCE

    A furious, terrifying tragedy that forces an audience to sit inside betrayal, grief and revenge with absolutely nowhere to hide.

    3 views
    Watch
  29. 29
    Tragedy

    Woyzeck

    By Georg Büchner · First performed in 1879

    A furious, fragmented nightmare about poverty, humiliation and psychological collapse that still feels centuries ahead of its time.

    3 views
    Watch
  30. 30
    Romantic Comedy

    Cyrano de Bergerac

    By Edmond Rostand · First performed in 1897

    A thrilling romantic comedy about wit, pride and longing that somehow feels intimate even at its most theatrical.

    2 views
    Watch
  31. 31
    Musical Theatre

    Hamilton

    By Lin-Manuel Miranda · First performed in 2015

    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.

    2 views
    Watch
  32. 32
    Tragedy

    Hedda Gabler

    By Henrik Ibsen · First performed in 1891

    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.

    2 views
    Watch
  33. 33
    Tragedy

    Long Day’s Journey into Night

    By Eugene O'Neill · First performed in 1956

    A devastating family drama that strips away every illusion about love, addiction and forgiveness until all that remains is raw human need.

    2 views