2025 NYT Critics' Picks

If you want a performance that sticks with you, check out Anna Christie. Michelle Williams is luminous as a woman confronting her past, shifting from tough talker to tender heart with effortless grace. Brian d’Arcy James and Mare Winningham shine—Mare is “so ace that you wish the role were bigger.” The St. Ann’s Waterfront production, complete with fog and music, feels like “an intoxicating New York blend of grit, cool and stardust.”

If you like plays that quietly wreck you in the best way, this one’s a must. It’s set in the near future, where Marjorie is living with a hyper-real A.I. version of her late husband who’s been programmed from her memories. What starts as tender and even comforting slowly turns into something much more complicated as the play asks how memory really works and who gets to control the story of a life. The New York Times called it “A.I. gave her back her husband. Was it worth it?” and that question honestly hangs over every beautiful, unsettling scene. You’ll leave thinking about grief, love, and technology in a completely new way.

On paper, it’s a rom-com about cake and New York, but really it’s about connection, emotional baggage, and the surprising turns two strangers can take. With “sharp comic timing and emotional depths,” its two leads make a simple cross-town mission feel like a journey of growth and connection.

These kids show up to win a trophy but end up sharing their messiest, funniest, and most honest growing-up moments, which critics praise for being both wildly entertaining and unexpectedly tender.

Critics praised this as a modern political thriller with “superb” performances from Mark Strong and Lesley Manville. Set over a single election night, the story follows Oedipus as troubling questions about his past surface and the truth closes in. The New York Times highlighted how the production builds dread with every new clue.

This is a total ensemble piece, and every single person pulls their weight. It follows a group of women in 1970s Ohio who come together in a consciousness-raising group and slowly start questioning the lives they’ve been told to accept. The Times called it “powerfully moving and funny” and even “Tony-worthy,” which feels right. It is smart, emotional, and surprisingly laugh-out-loud at times while still being deeply political in the most human way.

Critics called this revival “inspiring” with a “glorious” cast, and once you see Joshua Henry, Caissie Levy, and Brandon Uranowitz together, you get why. The story follows different families at the turn of the 20th century as they chase belonging, justice, and the American Dream. It feels big and sweeping but somehow still very personal. The voices are unreal, and the emotions really land.

Cold War Choir Practice is such a joyful, weird, and wonderful surprise. You will walk out grinning. It’s set during the Cold War, where a small-town choir rehearsal suddenly cracks open into this hilarious, heartfelt scramble to make sense of a looming nuclear deal. The New York Times called it a “music-infused comedy” that ends the festival “on a high,” and that’s exactly how it feels. If you want something smart, funny, and totally different from anything else on stage right now, go see it.