List of French playwrights

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

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)

• 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)