The 100 “best” Broadway musicals: A weighted Borda count aggregation

Unlike with movies, where many different credible organizations and individuals publish “best of all-time” lists, there are relatively few credible lists of the best Broadway musicals ever. Of course, part of that difference is due to the difference in form. Movies from any period are available to everyone to watch today. Musicals are generally available only while they are running; cast albums and movie adaptations are not quite the same experience, although the recent trend toward filmed stage versions is a better substitute.

Fortunately, the lists that are available for Broadway musicals cover enough different dimensions to provide a fair representation of the overall picture. Stage Door has a critics’ ranking of musicals, What’s on Stage has results from an audience poll of musicals, Saturday Evening Post has a critics’ ranking of cast albums, and Playbill has a sales ranking of cast albums. Along with these lists, information is also available on the length of runs for musicals and on Tony and other awards won by musicals. So, we have six potential categories:

• 1.         Critics’ rankings of musicals
• 2.         Audience rankings of musicals
• 3.         Critics’ rankings of cast albums
• 4.         Sales rankings of cast albums
• 5.         Longest-running musicals
• 6.         Lists of musicals winning the most Tonys or other awards

We provide here a list that aggregates these six categories. We again use a simple weighted Borda count aggregation that ranks the top 100 musicals within each category, assigning 100 points for the highest ranking musical and 1 point for the 100th ranking musical. For movies, we weighted the rankings 30% to critics’ rankings, 30% to individuals’ rankings, 30% to box office returns, and 10% to Academy Awards. For musicals, we again felt that critics’ rankings and audience support were more important than awards, which are determined at one point in time by a small group of people. We also felt that the rankings of the musicals themselves were more important than the rankings of the cast albums. So, we weighted the rankings 20% to critics’ rankings of musicals, 20% to audience rankings of musicals, 10% to critics’ rankings of cast albums, 10% to sales rankings of cast albums, 30% to run length rankings, and 10% to awards. Therefore, we have the same 40/60 weighting between industry insiders (critics’ rankings and awards) and the general public (audience rankings, album sales, and run lengths) as we had for movies.

Regarding the Playbill ranking of cast albums by sales, we verified and updated their data with the Recording Industry Association of America data cited in the article. We combined sales data for different cast albums for the same musical, but not for other albums relating to that musical, like the symphonic and concert recordings for Les Miserables. And, as we always do in the case of ties, we assigned all musicals tied for a given ranking the median value of all rankings across that position. So, if three musicals tied for number 1 in a category, they would each receive 99 points.

To rank musicals by their run lengths, we calculated the aggregate run lengths for all Broadway productions of the musical. This method favors older musicals to some extent, because they have had more opportunities for revivals. But it seemed important to consider all Broadway productions of a musical. Lists of adjusted box-office receipts for movies include all theatrical releases for the movie, not just the original release. We calculated this information for all musicals with an individual run of at least 1,000 shows. Therefore, we may have omitted some musicals with multiple runs of less than 1,000 shows that would have ranked higher than our lowest ranked musical (Newsies with 1,004 shows), but those omissions are unlikely to affect our rankings. We obtained all run length data from the Internet Broadway Database.

For awards, we decided to use only Tony Awards. This approach is similar to our approach for movies, where we considered only Academy Awards. There are other significant awards for musicals, especially Drama Desk, Drama League, and Olivier awards. Tony Awards were first awarded in 1947, include only Broadway musicals, and are certainly considered the most prestigious awards for Broadway musicals. Drama Desk awards were first awarded in 1955 and include Broadway, off-Broadway, and off-off-Broadway shows in the same categories; they also are viewed as being more political than Tony awards. Drama League awards were first formally awarded in 1935, but the Outstanding Musical award was not created until much later, in 1996; they also include both Broadway and off-Broadway musicals in the same categories. The Olivier Awards honor London musicals, rather than Broadway musicals, and were not awarded until 1976. Therefore, the Tony Awards are the oldest and most prestigious awards for musicals and the only major awards focused solely on Broadway musicals.

We took a slightly different approach to awarding points for the various Tony Award categories than we did for the Oscars. We wanted the rankings to reflect the quality of the musical, rather than the quality of a specific production. We awarded 4 points for Best Musical, 3 points for Best Original Score, 2 points each for Best Leading Actor, Best Leading Actress, Best Book, and Best Revival, and 1 point each for Best Featured Actor and Best Featured Actress. We did not award any points for the other categories, such as Direction, Choreography, Scenic Design, Costume Design, Lighting Design, and Sound Design, because those categories vary from production to production. Although the same can be said for the acting categories, the awards for those categories often reflect the quality of the role as much as the quality of the actor’s performance. So, it still seemed appropriate to consider those categories, but we awarded fewer points than we would have if we were ranking the specific productions rather than the underlying musicals.

Following is our list of the 100 best Broadway musicals of all time. A total of 184 musicals were represented on our list, ranking in the top 100 musicals in at least one of the categories described above. However, the top 100 seemed a good place to make the cut, because several musicals that ranked from 101 to 125 on our list received all their points from just the Tony Awards category and did not rank in any other categories.

It is not surprising that Les Miserables ranks first, but Hamilton could displace it eventually as it continues to move up the run length rankings. Hamilton is the only musical that ranked in the top 25 in all six categories. Five other musicals ranked in the top 50 in all six categories: Les Miserables, Rent, Fiddler on the Roof, The Book of Mormon, and South Pacific.

The oldest musical on our list is Anything Goes, from 1934. The newest musical is The Last Five Years, from 2025. By decade, our list includes 2 musicals from the 1930s, 5 from the 1940s, 8 from the 1950s, 10 from the 1960s, 17 from the 1970s, 14 from the 1980s, 8 from the 1990s, 16 from the 2000s, 19 from the 2010s, and 1 from the 2020s. Therefore, the early decades and the 1990s are underrepresented, but recency bias is not too problematic, as the 2000s and 2010s have similar representation to the 1970s and 1980s.