List of French playwrights

This is an incomplete list of playwrights from France in chronological order, according to date of birth.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.

16th century

• Theodore Beza (1519–1605)
• Étienne Jodelle (1532–1573)
• Robert Garnier (1544–1590)
• Alexandre Hardy (1570–1632)

17th century

• Jean Mairet (1604–1686)
• Pierre du Ryer (1606–1658)
• Pierre Corneille (1606–1684)
• Jean Rotrou (1609–1650)
• Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655)
• Molière (1622–1673)
• Samuel Chappuzeau (1625–1701)
• Thomas Corneille (1625–1709)
• Philippe Quinault (1635–1688)
• Jean Racine (1639–1699)
• Jacques Robbe (1643-1721)
• Charles Rivière Dufresny (1648–1724)
• Jean Palaprat (1650–1721)
• Antoine de La Fosse (1653–1708)
• Madame Ulrich (1665–1707)
• Antoine Houdar de La Motte (1672–1731)
• Pierre de Marivaux (1688–1763)
• Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps (1689–1761)
• Voltaire (1694–1778)
• Françoise de Graffigny (1695–1758)

18th century

• Pierre Beaumarchais (1732–1799)
• Louis-François Faur (1746–1829)
• Olympe de Gouges (1748–1793)
• Jean-Claude Gorgy (1753-1795)
• Jean Armand Charlemagne (1753–1838)
• Étienne Aignan (1773–1824)
• Victor Henri Joseph Brahain Ducange (1783–1833)
• Eugène Scribe (1791–1861)
• Alfred de Vigny (1797–1863)
• Antoinette Henriette Clémence Robert (1797–1872)
• Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850)

19th century

• Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
• Alexandre Dumas, père (1802–1870)
• Prosper Mérimée (1803–1870)
• Alfred de Musset (1810–1857)
• Théophile Gautier (1811–1872)
• Adolphe Salvat (died 1876)
• Émile Augier (1820–1889)
• Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880)
• Alexandre Dumas, fils (1824–1895)
• Henri de Bornier (1825–1901)
• Laetitia Marie Wyse Bonaparte (1831–1902)
• Victorien Sardou (1831–1908)
• Henry Becque (1837–1899)
• Auguste Villiers de l'Isle-Adam (1838–1889)
• Émile Zola (1840–1902)
• Brada (1847-1938)
• Jules Lemaître (1853–1914)
• François, Vicomte de Curel (1854–1928)
• Maurice Bouchor (1855–1929)
• Paul Hervieu (1857–1915)
• Georges Courteline (1858–1929)
• Eugène Brieux (1858–1932)
• Marie Léopold-Lacour (1859-1942)
• Henri Lavedan (1859–1949)
• Charles Maurice Donnay (1859–1945)
• Georges Feydeau (1862–1921)
• Albert Guinon (1863–1923)
• Jules Renard (1864–1910)
• Edmond Rostand (1868–1918)
• Paul Claudel (1868–1955)
• Henry Kistemaeckers (1872–1938)
• Alfred Jarry (1873–1907)
• Fanny Clar (1875-1944)
• Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918)
• Jean Giraudoux (1882–1944)
• Sacha Guitry (1885–1957)
• Paul Gury (1888-1974)
• Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
• Louis Verneuil (1893–1952)
• Rose Celli (1895–1982)
• Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
• Marcel Achard (1899–1974)

20th century

• Jean Tardieu (1903–1995)
• Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980)
• Georges Schehadé (1905–1989)
• Eugène Ionesco (1909–1994)
• Jean Anouilh (1910–1987)
• Jean Genet (1910–1986)
• Albert Camus (1913–1960)
• Armand Gatti (1924–2017)
• Bernard-Marie Koltès (1948–1989)
• Yasmina Reza (born 1959)
• Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt (born 1960)
• Pavel Hak (born 1962)
• Sedef Ecer (born 1965)