The 40 best plays of all time
This is one of the 759 lists we use to generate our main The Greatest Books list.
About this list
Independent, 41 Books
Paul Taylor and Holly Williams choose 40 brilliant plays to watch, hear or read
This list was originally published in 2022 and was added to this site over 2 years ago.
| Rank | Book | Authors | Year | Country | Language | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17152 | Far Away | Caryl Churchill | 2000 | British | English | |
| 14985 | Blasted | Sarah Kane | 1995 | British | English | |
| 125 | Antigone | Sophocles | -441 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 17152 | Ma Rainey's Black Bottom | August Wilson | 1984 | American | English | |
| 17152 | Bent | Martin Sherman | 1979 | British | English | |
| 1732 | The Government Inspector | Nikolai Gogol | 1836 | Russian | Russian | |
| 15910 | Old Times | Harold Pinter | 1971 | British | English | |
| 15910 | Purgatory In Ingolstadt | Marieluise Fleißer | 1924 | German | German | |
| 15910 | Pioneers In Ingolstadt | Marieluise Fleißer | 1928 | German | German | |
| 5862 | The Changeling | Thomas, William Rowley Middleton | 1622 | British | English | |
| 17152 | Our Country’s Good | Timberlake Wertenbaker | 1988 | British | English | |
| 71 | Hamlet | William Shakespeare | 1600 | British | English | |
| 14870 | Henry Iv | Luigi Pirandello | 1922 | Italian | Italian | |
| 11302 | A Raisin In The Sun | Lorraine Hansberry | 1959 | American | English | |
| 17152 | Intimate Apparel | Lynn Nottage | 2003 | American | English | |
| 17152 | An Oak Tree | Tim Crouch | 2005 | British | English | |
| 15910 | Sizwe Bansi Is Dead | Athol Fugard | 1972 | South African | English | |
| 599 | A Streetcar Named Desire | Tennessee Williams | 1947 | American | English | |
| 17152 | The Effect | Lucy Prebble | 2012 | British | English | |
| 1402 | The Seagull | Anton Chekhov | 1896 | Russian | Russian | |
| 1382 | The Importance of Being Earnest | Oscar Wilde | 1895 | Irish | English | |
| 17152 | One Man, Two Guvnors | Richard Bean | 2011 | British | English | |
| 424 | A Doll's House | Henrik Ibsen | 1879 | Norwegian | Norwegian | |
| 13511 | Machinal | Sophie Treadwell | 1928 | American | English | |
| 17152 | Making Noise Quietly | Robert Holman | 1986 | British | English | |
| 14191 | Private Lives | Noel Coward | 1930 | British | English | |
| 1084 | Mother Courage and Her Children | Bertolt Brecht | 1941 | German | German | |
| 17152 | Faith Healer | Brian Friel | 1979 | Irish | English | |
| 14232 | Jerusalem | Jez Butterworth | 2009 | British | English | |
| 7651 | Angels In America | Tony Kushner | 1991 | American | English | |
| 1305 | Long Day's Journey Into Night | Eugene O'Neill | 1956 | American | English | |
| 307 | Medea | Euripides | -431 | Greek | Ancient greek | |
| 2290 | Arcadia | Tom Stoppard | 1993 | British | English | |
| 15910 | The Dispute | Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux | 1744 | French | French | |
| 15910 | Happy Days | Samuel Beckett | 1961 | French | English | |
| 14985 | John | Annie Baker | 2015 | American | English | |
| 12401 | The History Boys | Alan Bennett | 2004 | British | English | |
| 17152 | Frozen | Bryony Lavery | 1998 | British | English | |
| 529 | Life Is a Dream | Pedro Calderón de la Barca | 1635 | Spanish | Spanish | |
| 14232 | Copenhagen | Michael Frayn | 1998 | British | English | |
| 285 | Oresteia | Aeschylus | -458 | Greek | Ancient greek |