Literature · Curated list
Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth and 27 more, ranked by how much of the world has written about each one.
Most written-about first. Each description summarises the play's Wikipedia article, which its name links to.
1
Tragedy by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, often called just Hamlet, which William Shakespeare wrote at some point between 1599 and 1601. It is the longest of his plays.
Wikidata · Photo: William Shakespeare, Public domain
2
Tragedy by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, often called just Romeo and Juliet: William Shakespeare's tragedy of the love between two young Italians whose families are feuding. It was one of his most popular plays in his lifetime and, with Hamlet, is among those most often performed.
Wikidata · Photo: Ford Madox Brown, Public domain
3
Play by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Macbeth, often called just Macbeth, a tragedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been first performed in 1606. It shows the violence, and the psychological harm, that political ambition and power bring.
Wikidata · Photo: Nathaniel Dance-Holland, Public domain
4
Play by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of King Lear, often called just King Lear, a tragedy by William Shakespeare written late in 1605 or early in 1606. Set in Britain before the Romans, it shows what follows from Lear's test of love, in which he shares out his land and power according to how his daughters praise him.
Wikidata · Photo: Anonymous Unknown author, Public domain
5
Play by William Shakespeare written circa 1603
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, often called just Othello, which William Shakespeare wrote around 1603. Set in Cyprus and Venice, it shows how Iago, the ensign of Othello, a Moorish military commander, works on him until he suspects his wife, Desdemona, of being unfaithful.
Wikidata · Photo: W.J. Morgan & Co. Lith., Public domain
6
Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's two-part tragic drama, drawn from the German folk tale of Faust; English-speaking readers usually meet its halves as “Faust, Part One” and “Faust, Part Two”. Nearly the whole of the first part, and most of the second, rhymes.
Wikidata · Photo: Anton Kaulbach, Public domain
7
Play by William Shakespeare
A comedy William Shakespeare wrote between 1594 and 1596. Set in Athens, it weaves together several subplots around the wedding of Hippolyta and Theseus.
Wikidata · Photo: William Shakespeare, Public domain
8
Play by Samuel Beckett
A play by the Irish author and playwright Samuel Beckett, written (1948–1949), first published (1952) and first staged (1953) in French, as En attendant Godot.
Wikidata · Photo: User:Vrahbani, CC BY-SA 3.0
9
Play by William Shakespeare
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (in the First Folio, The Tragedie of Ivlivs Cæsar), often called just Julius Caesar: a historical tragedy by William Shakespeare, thought to have been written and first staged in 1599. It shows the political plot that ended in the assassination of Julius Caesar, the Roman dictator, and the civil war in Rome that followed.
Wikidata · Photo: Edward Scriven, Public domain
10
Tragedy by Sophocles
An Athenian tragedy by Sophocles, written in 442 or 440 BC and first staged that same year at the Festival of Dionysus. It is thought to be the second-oldest of his surviving plays, after Ajax, written at around the same time.
Wikidata · Photo: Nikiforos Lytras, Public domain
11
Classical Athenian tragedy by Sophocles
Also called by its Greek title, Oedipus Tyrannus, or Oedipus the King, an Athenian tragedy by Sophocles. It is thought, though this is very uncertain, to have been first staged c. 429 BC.
Wikidata · Photo: Albert Greiner, Public domain
12
Play by William Shakespeare
A play William Shakespeare most likely wrote in 1610–1611, and one of the last, it is believed, that he wrote without a collaborator. After an opening scene on a ship caught in a storm at sea, the play moves to a remote island, home to the magician Prospero, his daughter Miranda and his two servants: Ariel, a spirit of the air, and Caliban, a savage, monstrous figure.
Wikidata · Photo: John William Waterhouse, Public domain
13
Play by Shakespeare
A play by William Shakespeare, thought to have been written between 1596 and 1598. Antonio, a merchant of Venice, fails to repay a large loan he took out for his close friend Bassanio from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender, with seemingly unavoidable deadly results.
14
Play by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night, or What You Will, a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare, thought to have been written around 1601–1602 as an entertainment for Twelfth Night, the end of the Christmas season. It centres on Viola and Sebastian, twins parted by a shipwreck.
Wikidata · Photo: Frederick Richard Pickersgill, Public domain
15
Pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's pastoral comedy, dated by scholars to 1599; its first appearance in print came in 1623, in the First Folio.
Wikidata · Photo: Walter Deverell, Public domain
16
Spanish-language play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca
A play in Spanish by Pedro Calderón de la Barca. It first appeared in print in 1636, in two separate editions, one from Zaragoza and one from Madrid.
Wikidata · Photo: Festival de Almagro, CC BY-SA 2.0
17
1664 play by Molière
Tartuffe, or The Impostor, or The Hypocrite, a comedy for the theatre by Molière, first staged in 1664. Its roles of Orgon, Elmire and Tartuffe are counted among the greatest of classical theatre.
Wikidata · Photo: Moliere & John Watts, Public domain
18
Play by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's tragedy, staged for the first time around 1607 by the King's Men, either at the Globe or at the Blackfriars Theatre.
Wikidata · Photo: A. M. Faulkner, CC BY-SA 4.0
19
Play by William Shakespeare
A comedy by William Shakespeare, thought to have been written between 1589 and 1593. Some take it to be his first play, and it is often seen as his first tentative try at themes and motifs he would treat more fully later; in no earlier play of his, for instance, does a heroine disguise herself as a boy.
Wikidata · Photo: Henry Courtney Selous, Public domain
20
1879 three-act play by Henrik Ibsen
A play in three acts by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It opened at the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 20 December 1879, having come out in print earlier that same month.
Wikidata · Photo: Henrik Ibsen, Public domain
21
22
Play by William Shakespeare
A comedy William Shakespeare wrote between 1590 and 1592. It opens with a framing device, often called the induction, in which a mischievous lord fools Christopher Sly, a drunken tinker, into thinking he is a lord himself.
Wikidata · Photo: William Luson Thomas / After Charles Robert Leslie, Public domain
23
Play by William Shakespeare
Among William Shakespeare's earliest plays: the shortest of his comedies and one of the most farcical, much of its humour coming from mistaken identity and slapstick, as well as wordplay and puns.
Wikidata · Photo: Photo taken by Cowardly Lion, Public domain
24
Comedy play by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's comedy, believed to date from 1598 and 1599; the First Folio, which came out in 1623, included it.
25
Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides
A tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides, based on a myth. It was first staged in 431 BC as part of a trilogy whose other plays are lost.
Wikidata · Photo: Alphonse Mucha, Public domain
26
Shakespearean history play
The Tragedy of Richard the Third, often called just Richard III: a play by William Shakespeare showing the Machiavellian rise and brief reign of King Richard III of England.
Wikidata · Photo: William Shakespeare , Thomas Cotes (printer) and John Smethwick (publisher), Public domain
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27
1836 satirical play by Nikolai Gogol
Also called The Inspector General, a satirical play by the Russian novelist and dramatist Nikolai Gogol. First published in 1836, it was revised for an edition of 1842.
Wikidata · Photo: Типография А.Плюшара, Public domain
28
Play by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare's tragedy about the legendary Roman leader Gnaeus Marcius Coriolanus, which scholars date to between 1605 and 1608.
Wikidata · Photo: Photo taken by Cowardly Lion, Public domain
29
Ancient Greek tragedy by Aeschylus
An ancient Greek tragedy traditionally credited to Aeschylus, thought to have been composed at some time between 479 BC and 424 BC, its terminus ante quem. It is based on the myth of the Titan Prometheus, who defies Zeus, protects humankind and gives it fire, and is punished for it by the angry Zeus.
Wikidata · Photo: Aeschylus (ascribed), Public domain
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30
Play by Shakespeare
The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus, often called just Titus Andronicus, a tragedy by William Shakespeare, thought to have been written between 1588 and 1593. Believed to be the earliest of his tragedies, it is often read as an attempt to emulate the violent, bloody revenge plays of other dramatists of the day, which audiences loved throughout the 16th century.
Wikidata · Photo: Jacob Hogg After Thomas Kirk, Public domain
Every Wikidata item that is a play, and that has its own English Wikipedia article, ranked by the number of Wikimedia sites with a page about it — Wikipedia's language editions, mostly, and sister projects such as Wikiquote. That counts how many communities independently thought it worth describing, and nobody can buy a place on it. The top 30 are shown.
Fetched from Wikidata on 2026-09-25. Each description is this site's summary of the entry's Wikipedia article, which its name links to: the wording is ours, the facts are Wikipedia's, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. To correct an entry, correct it there; the next refresh carries the change.
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