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I love your rankings because they are honest and not just trying to fall in! I’m happy that you gave honest reviews of how YOU felt after seeing the shows!

I am fascinated by your ranking!

We disagree!

If you're still able to, I highly recommend you go see Hadestown and The Outsiders, they're phenomenal!

A few more legendary lineup's I'll throw in the mix:

1960

• The Sound Of Music
• Fiorello!
• Gypsy
• Once Upon A Mattress
• Take Me Along

1964

• Hello, Dolly!
• Funny Girl
• High Spirits
• She Loves Me

1966

• Man of La Mancha
• Mame
• Skyscraper
• Sweet Charity

This year is really good but there could be some recency bias. I think 2004 actually takes the cake though - Avenue Q, Wicked, Caroline, or Change, and The Boy From Oz.

Looking back on 2016 is kinda wild:

Hamilton Waitress Shuffle Along School of Rock Bright Star

A super strong season. My personal pick is 2017 because that list still doesn't include other musicals like Anastasia, Bandstand, In Transit, Holiday Inn, and Amelie which all could have had a 5th place slot. Also a stacked year for revivals:

Miss Saigon Falsettos Hello Dolly

All five shows are so good in their own unique way. They should all run a good year+.

It's Les Mis. It's always been Les Mis. It's the mega-musical done right, one of the greatest scores in musical theater, a show that has defined so many performers and etched them into history, an insane set, and a gut-wrenching story which is a fantastic adaptation of Victor Hugo's epic.

Les mis. It’s a spectacle that has survived for decades and will probably survive for decades more (in terms of being something that will grab an audience)

Hadestown, full stop

Les miserables it has everything love, action, a great story, catchy songs

If we are talking about productions, for me it would be the original cast of A Chorus Line. That hit Broadway like a thunderbolt. The innovation in style, content, and technical achievement was unlike anything else.

Unfortunately, as the years went by it lost its tension and edge. And, to be fair, we got used to it. You only get to be surprised once.

My second choice would be Hal Prince's original production of Sweeney Todd with the original cast - Len Cariou, Angela Lansbury, and Victor Garber. It was shocking, funny, powerful, and very satisfying.

Finally, Hamilton. Every creative choice pays off. It is cutting edge, and yet it never leaves the audience behind - they are there every step of the way.

If you love Oliver you should watch the movie Scrooged which is a Christmas Carol musical from the same team behind Oliver.

Moulin Rouge and Come From Away are two of my favorites

yay! StarKid Musicals!

Oklahoma

Late to the discussion and ready to be downvoted but I adore Joseph and the amazing technicolor dream coat and Six is just so special to me

The Producers

Little Shop of Horrors

newsies

What day is it again?

Anyway, today it’s probably Moulin Rouge. Tomorrow might be Wicked.

In alphabetical order:

• Assassins
• Hadestown
• Hedwig and the Angry Inch
• Les Miserables
• Pippin

I know this is cheating, but I can't do Top 5. I have to do Top 10. Sorry. I added stars to what my top 5 might be RIGHT now, but that could change at any moment.
Gypsy
Mame*
Cabaret*
A Chorus Line*
Sweeney Todd
Dreamgirls*
Falsettos
Ragtime
Parade
Fun Home*

I have one I tell people and one I tell theatre folks. Since we are all theatre friends on this subreddit, here is my actual list...

1. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
2. The Phantom of the Opera
3. Hadestown
4. RENT
5. Caroline, or Change

Honorable mentions: Hamilton, Cats, The Last Five Years, Jesus Christ Superstar

1. Into the Woods

2. How to Succeed in Business

3. West Side Story

4. Hamilton

5. I’m currently enjoying Shrek but don’t know that it’ll make my lifetime top 5

• Les Misérables

• Company

• Hamilton

• Spring Awakening

• West Side Story

Isn't that partly simply due to inflation? The theaters can't be any more full than for any other play, it's just that tickets cost more now. I'm sure I'd like, Phantom of the Opera had come out now instead of in the 90s, it would be doing huge numbers too.

Is the Broadway show better than the movie? Because that shit was like high school musical level trash.

TIL the Broadway show was only 2:30, I guess that is why the movie pacing felt so awful to me. Never watched the musical but damn the movie only covered half of the show and I just couldn't stay interested in it due to how horribly slow it was. Maybe someone will do a fan edit after the 2nd part is released to fix the pacing problems.

Watch out, Hollywood 😂

I have a handful of favorites, but this list is in no particular order

Next to Normal

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Equus

The Rocky Horror Show

Company

Hedda Gabler

The Great Comet. Hands. Down.

I have been going to Broadway shows since I was a child in the 1970s. How to pick one favorite! But here are my highlights...

1. My most memorable shows from the 70s would be A Chorus Line, Grease and Deathtrap.
2. I saw Les Mis in 1987. That was amazing.
3. In the 90s I would say that Aida and Rent were memorable. I also saw Brian Dennehy in Death of a Salesman.
4. My son was born in 2002...so having young kids, I didn't go to many shows.
5. I saw Hedwig with NPH in 2014. That was amazing, and maybe one of my favorites after Les Mis.
6. Recently, the ones I have loved the most were The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Groundhog Day, Kinky Boots, and The Ferryman.

I really enjoyed “Side Show” when I saw it in New York in the late 1990s. It was so different and original. Also, “Laughter on the 23rd Floor” with Nathan Lane.

Of Mice and Men. Chris O'dowd was a force in that production.

For me it's Hadestown and second place (Les Mis) is not particularly close.

Hadestown is one of those "oooooh this is what this artform can truly be." It's that amazing.

I mean. West Side Story, obviously.

Leonard: "Alright, we've written some wall-to-wall iconic numbers, retold a classic tragedy in the best possible way, infused it with messages about how racism and intolerance destroy everything - "

Arthur: "Don't forget flawlessly incorporating music and dance into the narrative."

Leonard: "Yes, yes, that too. Should we call it a day?"

Stephen: "Here's an idea. What if our comic relief song was also a damming look on how society ostracizes the disenfranchised, pushing them into an endless spiral of crime and addiction, because no part of society wants to take responsibility?"

Don't get me wrong - Hamilton and Hadestown are both masterpieces, and I will talk forever about how great Ragtime and Company and Cabaret are. I've argued that Wicked is a perfect musical, in that it's a primer of how musicals work - structurally and emotionally - in easy-to-digest music, on a familiar story. But West Side Story is in a class by itself. The only show I think can compare is Man of La Mancha, which loses points because it has to be done right, or else the show's just treacly. There's been influential shows before it (Oklahoma, Showboat) and after (Les Miserables, Phantom, JCS, Hamilton), but West Side Story is the giant whose shoulders are stood upon.

Sweeney Todd. Incredible score, well put-together story, strong dialogue. No musical can be "the best" without a strong book. I still remember the first time I saw the George Hearn/Angela Lansbury filmed stage production I basically ran around my house screaming at the end of it because the story blew my mind. The music is used so precisely - not a wasted song or moment in the entire score.

I return to the show again and again because the music is gorgeous, rivaled only perhaps by SITPWG or Les Mis. If you question this choice, listen to the run of three songs at the end of act one. It's literally musical theater perfection.

The modern shows people are suggesting are great and beloved of course, but they wouldn’t be what they are without older pieces that built the modern musical form. Namely, R&H shows- South Pacific, King and I, Oklahoma, etc.

Never mind, clearly the correct answer is Shrek the musical.

New theory: the best musicals have revolving stages. /s