Top 5 Shakespeare plays

Five? Surely you jest...

OK, top 3 then.

Hamlet and Macbeth are my favorites.

Don't like Romeo & Juliet. I always feels bad that R&J is used so often to introduce Shakespeare to teenagers. Even as a 14-year-old I wanted to smack some sense into both of them.

5. Othello/Much Ado About Nothing
4. The Tempest
3. Macbeth
2. King Lear
1. Hamlet

(Although somehow I haven't read or seen any of the histories so my choices are skewed.)

01 henry iv parts one and two
02 hamlet
03 macbeth (three awesome movie versions!)
04 as you like it (twee as hell, and funny)
05 julius caesar (my first, included for sentimental reasons)

Troilus!

How is it that no one has mentioned Twelfth Night? Has a greater cast of characters ever been assembled? Viola, Feste, Orsino, Toby, Andrew!?!? Fucking Malvolio!!!

My five:

1. Twelfth Night
2. Hamlet
3. King Lear
4. Macbeth
5. A Winter's Tale

1. King Lear
2. Henry IV, part 1
3. Taming of the Shrew

The three plays that I saw live while still in my single-digits and still remember the thrill of hearing the voices echo around the outside theater, so I like them more for wonderful memories than for the plays themselves:
1. Henry V
2. As You Like It
3. Romeo and Juliet

5. Henry V
4. King Lear
3. Much Ado
2. henry iv pt 1
1. Hamlet
these are my faves, sadly, haven't read or seen them all.

1. The Tempest
2. Romeo and Juliet
3. The Merchant of Venice
4. The Taming of the Shrew
5. Hamlet

5. The Tempest
4. Romeo and Juliet
3. Othello
2. Macbeth
1. Hamlet

1. King Lear (Inspired Kurosawa's Ran, deals with passing of generations, facade of power, family strife...pretty much everything).
2. Measure for Measure (Vincenzo plays with peoples heads, makes Isabella's life living hell, asks her for a shag. The end.)
3. Richard III (Just the image of Clarence's death - brilliant).
4. Macbeth (great, pacy, classic "power corrupts" message).
5. Julius Caesar (Just for the intercutting of scenes in the final acts - almost cinematic in technique).

5. Twelfth Night [lovely autumnal late-romance; much find comedy here... very good 1996 Trevor Nunn film version with Ben Kingsley sublime as the clown]
4. King John [have studied this and plan to write on for the English degree Part II Tragedy paper... a generic hybrid that is enervated by the dischord between styles. Fine character studies, and a political narrative... my pet topic: the bizarre scene of Arthur's death - young boy and presumptive air to the throne of England escapes from John's clutches and deliberately jumps from a wall, despite being well-disguised, somehow thinking this won't kill him. It does. In Holinshed, the fate of Arthur is shrouded in mystery, and there was an earlier anonymously-penned play in which his death takes on a more melodramatic aspect than Shakespeare's...]
3. Measure for Measure [a wonderful discovery through my degree course; a human drama with all sorts of interesting problems... Very interesting role played by the Duke...]
2. Richard II [very underrated historical-tragedy... incendiary emotions, and especially beautiful dialogue]
1. King Lear [has to be really... the most familiar, line-by-line, as it was my A-Level Shakespeare. My favourite of his tragedies; bleakly pointing to Beckett etc.]

Underrated: Troilus and Cressida [an *antidote to the Epic*]
Utterly odd hybrid: Timon of Athens.

I dislike Hamlet so much that even Mark Rylance in the lead role couldn't save it for me. My top five are:

1. Macbeth
2. Othello
3. Richard II (saw the Globe production of this and have decided it's the greatest thing ever)
4. King Lear
5. Twelfth Night

I even like Romeo and Juliet. Seriously, if you can believe that the Siege of Troy was started by Paris running off with Helen and refusing to give her back, why not buy these two? I like Romeo and Juliet, they're go-getters. And I always liked Mercutio. And there's some good fighting in it.

Midsummer Night's Dream remains my sentimental favorite. But I feel underexposed to Shak. despite a few years of Shakespeare in the Park under my belt (and a few seasons of Ashland's summer Shakespeare festival, come to think of it).

I read all the Charles and Mary Lamb stories when I was a kid. Now I've got the complete works of WS but till now I've only read "As You Like it". (I've seen the movie Shakespeare-Wallah though)

Also must add The Winters Tale and Henry IV (1 and 2). Personally I don't like many of his comedies - not a great fan of either "mistaken identity" or the "battle of the sexes" plots he used so many times. My favourites are generally the more mellow or intriguing ones.

There's a lot of Shakespeare I haven't seen though, and it seems that some plays hardly ever appear to get staged/filmed. Shame, that.