10 Julius Caesar
The bard most political drama by far, what catches everyone off guard about this play is how little the titular character does.
Caesar has just come home from a huge victory. But there is a discomforting disconnect between the plebeians, the senators, and Caesar's inner circle.
No one seems to be on the same page about anything, and Brutus is trying to figure out where he stands, and all of this becomes the center of the play and masterclass in wordplay, manipulation, and argumentation. This play has standing power in every adaptation.
9. Romeo and Juliet
A young couple falls madly and unequivocally. Never mind that Romeo was lovesick for someone else when the play opens the children of feuding families in love.
We know from the prologue that these two star-crossed lovers are not destined to end well. Like most failed relationships, though, it's all about timing for these two.
And when the letter Julia sends to Romeo about her otherwise genius, I'll be a morbid plan doesn't get to him in time. Romeo walks back into Verona, not knowing all the facts.
The rest is history. Voices girl dies, the girl sees boy dies, and the families finally decide to put their differences behind them.
It's easy to see romantics make this more of a love story than a cautionary tale.
8 King Lear
Speaking of parent-child relationships, this warning is for the parents. King Lear is ready to give up the responsibilities of being King and live in luxury.
He redistributes his power in a questionable game of flattery and ends up banishing his once-favorite daughter, Cordelia, to France.
When Lear's expectations of galavanting around don't line up with those of his remaining daughters, he finds himself with nothing and all of those fighting for power and position; we find brothers warring over their inheritance.
The remaining sisters are warring over a man and an actual war with France where Cordelia makes a not quite so triumphant return.
Both Cordelia and Leah are arrested eventually die, and the better of those warring brothers becomes King.
7 Twelveth night
A mainstay in the Shakespearean comedies twelfth night has one of the most complicated casts of characters and names of Shakespeare's plays.
After a shipwreck, a female twin of a fraternal set similar to her brother finds herself with nothing in a city where her father wants to do business.
What's a girl to do? Dress up like a boy and getting good with the local Duke; of course, all's going well until the love triangle square. Hexagon sets in and complicates everything.
Only one person is cross-dressing, but no one says what they mean.
In the end, every couple finds their match except for Malvolio, but he might have had it coming.
6 Six a fellow.
The more of Venice, the subtitle of this play should clarify how much of a fellow's religious and ethnic background is at the center of this play.
More would have been a general term to refer to North African Muslims or Arabs in Shakespeare's time.
However, jealousy is at the center of the conflict. Societal professional in romantic, the master manipulator, ego pulls everyone strings and turns friends and lovers against each other.
The damage is done, but egos plot unravels in the end, even if his resolution isn't as satisfying.
5 The Merchant of Venice.
The ER that surrounds his play is denser than the play itself. But the implications that riddle display calls forth with one of the strongest female characters in Shakespeare's folio.
This play is a societal and legal battle. After alone goes wrong, the protagonist finds themselves fighting for their lives in a legal fight over the debt.
There's a fun play on logic and semantics and the resolution of this one, but the judgments it passes on everyone involved are damning, just who it deems. The worst is up for interpretation, and productions of this play make the most of it.
4. The Tempest
Power and magic are common themes of Shakespeare. But rarely do they come together as strongly as in this play, often identifies Shakespeare's last solo work.
The Tempest is often read as Shakespeare's final bow in the theatre, a powerful and magical Duke cast out of society and living with his daughter in spirits and monsters on a deserted island summons a storm that strains some of his enemies on his shore.
Not everything goes quite to his plan. But in the end, everyone finds their happily ever after as the Duke prepares to leave behind the island and his magic.
3 Macbeth.
The destructive force of ambition is on full display in Macbeth; knowledge might be powerful, but in this play, the prophecies of three witches, Dr. Macbeth, and his wife to madness and death.
The first is the knowledge that Macbeth will be King, which makes the couple drink with ambition.
The second is a riddle that gives them a false sense of security.
This game between what we know and what we think we know turns individuals, families, and entire political systems over.
2. A Midsummer Night's Dream.
One of the most playful and Shakespeare's folio, this one gets dark pretty quickly.
The problem is her father wants her to marry someone else. Dad's choice is smitten, and he wants to marry her.
The further problem still, her best friend wants to marry Dan Souter. After what should have probably been a terrifying night in the force being toyed with by fairies.
The four pairs often get married. The forest spirits have the most fun in this play, or the blinding power of love takes center stage.
1 Hamlet
Revenge seems to go cold for the prince of Denmark; reporting erupts in the end; ng sty Hamlet, who is much older than we all think, is dealing with the fact that his uncle murdered his father, took his crown married his mother.
This information comes from his father's ghost, making him feel even more paranoid about finding the truth.
Hamlet spends five acts attempting to sort out everyone is hiding, pretending to be a little crazy here.
Putting on a play to show the King his crimes, they're pushing away his girlfriend to keep her meddling father out just for good measure.
He seemingly loses all sense of reality and fiction before the truth comes crashing down in a murderous rage.
That leaves almost everyone dead at the close of the play.
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