The 10 best Broadway shows of 2025

Feuding families. Tragic quests. Dead bodies. George Clooney and Sarah Snook.

Broadway had plenty of variety on offer this past year. Here is our annual list — daringly ranked in order — of the top ten Broadway shows of 2025.

1. Purpose

Nobody but Branden Jacobs-Jenkins could have written “Purpose,” a dynamic new drama about a Chicago family of civil rights leaders and a fine, fresh-eyed showcase for the famed actors of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Here was a play that took no prisoners as it explored the universal experience of trying to live up to the accomplishments of your parents while also avoiding falling into their blind spots and being unable to climb out. And in a rough year for Broadway investors all over the rialto, this one also found its audience.

2. Oedipus

With Mark Strong and Lesley Manville playing the ill-fated leading pair of classical co-conspirators, this production of “Oedipus” featured some of the best British actors of this generation. But what most impressed here was the way Robert Icke’s adaptation — or maybe the better word is translation — of the Sophoclean original converted the classic tragedy into a gripping contemporary thriller, set in and around a modern-day election campaign. Rare is the Greek drama that had so riveted a general audience while still conforming to the classical unities and the sense of inevitability that have made this made this the perfect tragedy, recounting its cautionary tale for more than 2,000 years.

3. Little Bear Ridge Road

Even though “Little Bear Ridge Road” required only four actors and a couch, it still cost $500,000 a week to run. Indicative, for sure, of Broadway’s less-than-friendly cost structure for beautiful new plays like Samuel D. Hunter’s loving portrait of a struggling pair of loving but emotionally stopped-up family members navigating through grief, anger and illness in a small Idaho town. Laurie Metcalf dug deep for one of the most moving performances of the year, a study of how being introverted or even inarticulate does not mean your feelings range any less deep.

4. The Picture of Dorian Gray

Not all fans of the original Oscar Wilde narrative were convinced Kip Williams’ theatrical adaptation of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” was fully true to the great Victorian aesthete’s themes. But in terms of a shows offering a truly bravura performance (from the incomparably precise Sarah Snook) and, more importantly, offering a glimpse into a likely Broadway future where human actors coexist (shudder) alongside digital replicas — maybe of themselves, maybe separate creations — this eye-popper was far and away the most innovative Broadway show of the year.

5. Dead Outlaw

Although starved for sufficient attention by the crush of spring musicals, the iconoclastic, sardonic “Dead Outlaw” was a delightful entry from the anti-sentimentalist team of David Yazbek (who composed the music with Erik Della Penna), Itamar Moses (who wrote the book) and David Cromer, the director. The show was thoroughly original, mournful when it needed to be and yet never afraid of engendering a laugh or two at a corpse. How many prior Broadway musicals have asked an audience not just to confront their own mortality but the decay of their physical body, which surely is the bigger ask? We’ve all learned since this show closed that political insults in America don’t stop when someone dies. The show was right when it saw that everything is transactional, even death itself.

6. Just in Time

This hugely entertaining Bobby Darin bio-musical gave freedom to, and celebrated the talent of, its star, Jonathan Groff. Along with immersing the audience in a succulent set from Derek McLane that felt like a trip back in time to some idealized nighterie of the 1930s, “Just in Time” lifted the longtime musical-theater performer into a whole different realm of old-school entertainer. Groff took command of a piece wildly underestimated prior to opening and turned it into one of Broadway’s big and glam nights out of the year.

7. Good Night, and Good Luck

Both political agitprop and a heroic vehicle for a megastar, “Good Night, and Good Luck” was a loving portrait of the center-left newsrooms of old, a time when America listened as one and trusted the integrity of its broadcasters. Director David Cromer approached the old stomping grounds of Edward R. Murrow with his signature attention to detail and, in the lead role, George Clooney did not disappoint the audiences who had shelled out the megabucks to have him remind them of a more trusting, and thus more functional, America.

8. BOOP!: the Musical

Betty Boop was a vamp but Jerry Mitchell was determined that “Boop!: The Musical,” his good-hearted take on the classic silent cartoon icon of yesteryear would be an optimistic family musical. He was good on his word, delivering a generous, populist entertainment that was much better than the critical response it received. David Foster composed the most underrated score of the season and the titular young star, Jasmine Amy Rogers, gave a near perfect performance as a cartoon megastar who goes on a vacation to the present and finds life to be no easier. The show’s investors could relate.

9. Ragtime

This anthemic 1998 musical based on the E. L. Doctorow novel arrived on Broadway a generation ago in a free-wheeling, page-to-stage production from the late Frank Galati. For the Lincoln Center revival of “Ragtime,” Lear deBessonet chose far simpler metaphors and visual cues as she charted the struggles of three core American populations in the first years of the 20th century. But the sheer power of the score thrilled audiences anew, especially since deBessonet had found such superlative singers in the likes of Joshua Henry and Nichelle Lewis. This was a revival that fundamentally honored an original work of great substance and import. Huzzah for that.

10. Marjorie Prime

Most great plays are about mortality and, these days, that often includes discussion of humanoid robots and artificial intelligence. Although a decade old, Jordan Harrison’s drama about an old woman who gets to visit with an A.I.-powered version of her dead husband, still in his prime, proved remarkably prescient for the current moment as the mind-boggling possibilities, and pitfalls, of new technology takes hold. Plus here was a chance to see not just Cynthia Nixon, who takes no prisoners, but June Squibb, one of America’s oldest actors, here handed the perfect role for her vital humanity.