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
The Bacchae
A savage and hypnotic tragedy about repression, ecstasy and the terrifying consequences of believing reason alone can control human nature.
16 views -
2Morality 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.
15 views -
3Musical Theatre
Oh! What a Lovely War
A dazzling collision of music hall comedy and historical tragedy that reinvented British theatre while exposing the human cost of war.
15 viewsWatch -
4Tragedy
Miss Julie
A scorching psychological duel about sex, class and power that still feels dangerous more than a century after it was written.
13 views -
5Dramatic 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.
12 viewsWatch -
6Theatre of the Absurd
Six Characters in Search of an Author
A thrillingly strange play that tears theatre apart in front of the audience and asks whether stories can ever capture the truth of a human life.
11 viewsWatch -
711 viewsWatch
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817th 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.
10 views -
9Dramatic 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.
10 viewsWatch -
10Tragedy
Woyzeck
A furious, fragmented nightmare about poverty, humiliation and psychological collapse that still feels centuries ahead of its time.
10 viewsWatch -
11Tragedy
Death and the King’s Horseman
A thrilling and devastating play about duty, colonial violence and spiritual responsibility that still feels dangerously alive.
9 viewsWatch -
12Social Satire
The Coffin is Too Big for the Hole
A deceptively simple play that turns one bureaucratic problem into a devastating portrait of grief, authority and the absurdity of modern systems.
9 viewsWatch -
13Tragedy
The Glass Menagerie
A fragile, piercing memory play about love, shame and escape that captures the sadness of family life with almost unbearable precision.
9 viewsWatch -
14Epic Theatre
The Good Person of Szechwan
A brilliant, unsettling play that asks one impossible question with complete clarity: how do you remain good in a society that punishes kindness at every turn?
9 views -
15Romantic Comedy
Cyrano de Bergerac
A thrilling romantic comedy about wit, pride and longing that somehow feels intimate even at its most theatrical.
8 viewsWatch -
16Theatre of the Absurd
Waiting for Godot
A strange, hilarious and deeply human play about time, companionship and the terror of waiting for a life that never quite arrives.
8 viewsWatch -
17Social 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?
7 viewsWatch -
18Social 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.
7 viewsWatch -
19Epic 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.
7 viewsWatch -
20Social Realism
The Power of Darkness
A suffocating, morally ferocious drama in which greed, lust and fear poison an entire household from the inside out.
7 viewsWatch -
21Dramatic Comedy
The Visit
A viciously funny moral nightmare about money, justice and the terrifying ease with which ordinary people learn to excuse cruelty.
7 views -
22Tragedy
Doctor Faustus
A thrilling and unsettling play about ambition, vanity and the terror of realising too late that knowledge cannot save you from yourself.
6 views -
23Noh Theatre
Dōjōji
A hypnotic theatrical ghost story where jealousy becomes sacred terror and every movement feels charged with centuries of emotion.
6 viewsWatch -
24Tragedy
King Lear
A terrifying study of power, ageing and human cruelty that strips civilisation down to the bone and somehow finds tenderness there too.
6 viewsWatch -
25Tragedy
Romeo and Juliet
A play everyone thinks they already know until they see how violent, funny, reckless and emotionally overwhelming it actually is.
6 viewsWatch -
26Tragedy
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.
5 views -
27Tragedy
Macbeth
A violent, hypnotic tragedy about ambition, guilt and political chaos that still feels dangerous every time it is performed.
5 views -
28Tragedy
Oedipus Rex
A terrifyingly precise tragedy about knowledge, power and the human need to believe we control our own lives.
5 viewsWatch -
29Dramatic Comedy
The Misanthrope
A razor sharp comedy about the exhausting performance of social life and the danger of demanding absolute honesty from a world built on politeness.
5 views -
30Social 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.
5 viewsWatch -
31Tragedy
A Streetcar Named Desire
A feverish, devastating portrait of desire, class and self deception that still feels dangerous every time it is performed.
4 viewsWatch -
32Tragedy
Antigone
An unnervingly modern tragedy about political power, moral conviction and the terrible cost of refusing to bend.
4 viewsWatch -
33Tragedy
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.
4 viewsWatch
