View source for Tom Stoppard

{{Short description|British playwright (1937–2025)}}
{{Use British English|date=November 2015}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2025}}
{{Redirect|Stoppard|the surname|Stoppard (surname)|the literary award|Tom Stoppard Prize}}
{{Infobox writer
| honorific_prefix = Sir<!--Links not needed per MOS:OVERLINK-->
| name             = Tom Stoppard
| honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OM|CBE|FRSL|HonFBA}}
| image            = Tom Stoppard, playwright, NYC (cropped).jpg<!--See talk page before changing-->
| alt              = 
| caption          = Stoppard in {{circa|1985}}
| birth_name       = Tomáš Sträussler
| birth_date       = {{Birth date|df=y|1937|7|3}}
| birth_place      = [[Zlín]], Czechoslovakia
| death_date       = {{nowrap|{{Death date and age|df=y|2025|11|29|1937|7|3}}}}
| death_place      = [[Dorset]], England
| occupation       = {{cslist|Playwright|screenwriter}}
| citizenship      = {{plainlist|
* [[Czechoslovakia]] (before 1939)
* United Kingdom (after 1946)
}}
| period           = 1953–2020
| genre            = {{cslist|Dramatic comedy|[[tragicomedy]]}}
| spouses          = {{plainlist|
* {{marriage|Josie Ingle|1965|1972|end=div}}
* {{marriage|[[Miriam Stoppard|Miriam Stern]]|1972|1992|end=div}}
* {{marriage|[[Sabrina Guinness]]|2014}}
}}
| partner          = [[Felicity Kendal]] (1991–1998)
| children         = 4, including [[Ed Stoppard|Ed]]
| awards           = [[List of awards and nominations received by Tom Stoppard|Full list]]
| signature        = 
| website          = {{URL|https://www.unitedagents.co.uk/tom-stoppard}}
}}

'''Sir Tom Stoppard''' (born '''{{lang|cs|Tomáš Sträussler|italic=no}}'''; 3 July 1937 – 29 November 2025) was a British playwright and screenwriter.<ref name=sal>{{cite web |last=Reiter |first=Amy |date=13 November 2001 |title=Tom Stoppard |url=https://www.salon.com/2001/11/13/tom_stoppard/ |website=[[Salon (website)|Salon]] |access-date=9 October 2008}}</ref> He wrote for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covered the themes of human rights, censorship, and [[political freedom]], often delving into the deeper philosophical bases of society. Stoppard, a playwright of the [[Royal National Theatre]], was one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation<ref name="OCTP"/> and was critically compared with [[William Shakespeare]] and [[George Bernard Shaw]].<ref name="Weber">{{Cite news|author= Weber, Bruce|title=Tom Stoppard, Award-Winning Playwright of Witty Drama, Dies at 88|work = [[The New York Times]]|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/29/theater/tom-stoppard-dead.html|date=29 November 2025|access-date=2 December 2025|language=en-US}}</ref> He was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] for his contribution to theatre in 1997 and awarded the [[Order of Merit]] in 2000.

Born in [[First Czechoslovak Republic|Czechoslovakia]], Stoppard left as a Jewish child refugee, fleeing imminent [[Occupation of Czechoslovakia (1938–1945)|Nazi occupation]]. He spent three years at [[Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling|a boarding school in Darjeeling]] in the [[Indian Himalayas]], then settled with his family in England after the war, in 1946. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.

Stoppard's most prominent plays include ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' (1966), ''[[Jumpers (play)|Jumpers]]'' (1972), ''[[Travesties]]'' (1974), ''[[Night and Day (play)|Night and Day]]'' (1978), ''[[The Real Thing (play)|The Real Thing]]'' (1982), ''[[Arcadia (play)|Arcadia]]'' (1993), ''[[The Invention of Love]]'' (1997), ''[[The Coast of Utopia]]'' (2002), ''[[Rock 'n' Roll (play)|Rock 'n' Roll]]'' (2006), and ''[[Leopoldstadt (play)|Leopoldstadt]]'' (2020). He wrote the screenplays for ''[[Brazil (1985 film)|Brazil]]'' (1985), ''[[Empire of the Sun (film)|Empire of the Sun]]'' (1987), ''[[The Russia House (film)|The Russia House]]'' (1990), ''[[Billy Bathgate (film)|Billy Bathgate]]'' (1991), ''[[Shakespeare in Love]]'' (1998), ''[[Enigma (2001 film)|Enigma]]'' (2001), and ''[[Anna Karenina (2012 film)|Anna Karenina]]'' (2012), as well as the [[BBC]]/[[HBO]] limited series ''[[Parade's End (TV series)|Parade's End]]'' (2013). He directed the film ''[[Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (film)|Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' (1990), adapting his own 1966 play as its screenplay, with [[Gary Oldman]] and [[Tim Roth]] as the leads.

Stoppard received [[List of awards and nominations received by Tom Stoppard|numerous accolades]] including an [[Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay]] for ''Shakespeare in Love'', three [[Laurence Olivier Awards]], and five [[Tony Awards]].<ref name=utop>{{cite news | title=Stoppard play sweeps Tony awards | url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6739885.stm | work=[[BBC News]] | date=11 June 2007| access-date=5 October 2008}}</ref> In 2008, ''[[The Daily Telegraph]]'' ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture".<ref>{{cite news|title=The 100 most powerful people in British culture|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3672604/The-100-most-powerful-people-in-British-culture-1-20.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/3672604/The-100-most-powerful-people-in-British-culture-1-20.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|work=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|date=9 November 2016|access-date = 9 May 2020}}{{cbignore}}</ref> His final play, ''Leopoldstadt'', set in [[History of the Jews in Vienna|the Jewish community]] of early 20th-century Vienna, premiered in 2020 at [[Wyndham's Theatre]].<ref name="Brown, Mark">{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/jun/26/jewish-district-inspires-tom-stoppard-personal-new-play-leopoldstadt|title=Jewish district inspires Tom Stoppard in 'personal' new play|author= Brown, Mark|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=26 June 2019|access-date=18 September 2021}}</ref> It won the [[Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play]] and later the 2023 [[Tony Award for Best Play]].<ref name = "Wolf"/><ref name="broadway.com">{{cite web|title=Tom Stoppard's Olivier-Winning Leopoldstadt Sets Dates for West End Return|url=https://www.broadway.com/buzz/200675/tom-stoppards-olivier-winning-leopoldstadt-sets-dates-for-west-end-return/|author= Sullivan, Lindsey |date = 23 April 2021|access-date=2 December 2025|website=[[Broadway.com]]}}</ref>

==Early life and education ==

Stoppard was born Tomáš Sträussler<ref name="Kois">{{cite web |last1=Kois |first1=Dan |title=Tom Stoppard Doesn't Trust Biographies. Now He's the Subject of One. |url=https://slate.com/culture/2021/02/tom-stoppard-life-biography-hermione-lee.html |website=Slate Magazine |access-date=24 February 2021 |date=23 February 2021}}</ref> in [[Zlín]], [[First Czechoslovak Republic|Czechoslovakia]] (present day Czech Republic). He was the younger son of Martha Becková and Eugen Sträussler,<ref name="Kois"/> a doctor employed by the [[Bata Shoes|Bata shoe company]]. His parents were non-observant Jews.<ref name="Moss"/> Just before the [[German occupation of Czechoslovakia]], the town's patron, [[Jan Antonín Baťa]], transferred his Jewish employees, mostly physicians, to branches of his firm outside Europe.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.cet.ac.il/terezin/dk9e6.htm+tom+stoppard+mother+beck%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26client%3Dsafari| title = Theresienstadt memorial archive ''Tom Stoppard Discloses his Past''| access-date = 21 February 2010| archive-date = 6 November 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20161106023725/http://www.cet.ac.il/terezin/dk9e6.htm%20tom%20stoppard%20mother%20beck%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26client%3Dsafari| url-status = dead}}</ref><ref name="Moss">{{cite news|author= Moss, Stephen|url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2002/jun/22/books.featuresreviews |title=And now the real thing|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=22 June 2002|access-date= 2 December 2025}}</ref> On 15 March 1939, the day the [[Nazis]] invaded Czechoslovakia, the Sträussler family fled to [[Singapore in the Straits Settlements|Singapore]], where Bata had a factory.<ref name="Kois"/>

Before the [[Japanese occupation of Singapore]], Stoppard, his brother, and their mother fled to [[British Raj|British India]]. Stoppard's father volunteered to remain in Singapore, knowing that as a doctor he would be needed in its defence.<ref name="Moss"/> Stoppard long believed that his father had perished in Japanese captivity as a [[prisoner of war#Empire of Japan|prisoner of war]],<ref name="Tom Stoppard 1994 p91"/><ref name="BBC">{{Cite web|title=Radio 3 – Tom Stoppard Interview|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk:80/radio3/johntusainterview/stoppard_transcript.shtml|access-date=30 November 2025|archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20130521031445/http://www.bbc.co.uk:80/radio3/johntusainterview/stoppard_transcript.shtml|archive-date=21 May 2013|language=en-GB|work=BBC}}</ref> but later discovered that his father had been reported drowned after the ship he was aboard was bombed by Japanese forces, as he tried to flee Singapore in 1942.<ref name="Kois"/><ref name="Moss"/> In 1941, when Tomáš was five, he, his brother Petr, and their mother were evacuated to [[Darjeeling]], India. The boys attended [[Mount Hermon School, Darjeeling|Mount Hermon School]], an American multi-racial school,<ref name="Tom Stoppard 1994 p91">Stoppard, Tom; Paul Delaney (1994). ''Tom Stoppard in Conversation'', p. 91, [[University of Michigan Press]].</ref> where the brothers became Tom and Peter.

In 1945, his mother married Kenneth Stoppard, a [[Major (British Army and Royal Marines)|major]] in the [[British Army]]. Kenneth adopted her children and the family moved to [[Nottingham]], England, in 1946.<ref name=sal/> In Nottingham, Stoppard was "warmly welcomed" by his stepfather's family and he later noted that by this point in his life "English was my only language. Suddenly I was an English schoolboy."<ref name="Write"/> Stoppard once wrote that his upbringing in England led him to become "an honorary Englishman", and stated that "I fairly often find I'm with people who forget I don't quite belong in the world we're in. I find I put a foot wrong—it could be pronunciation, an arcane bit of English history—and suddenly I'm there naked, as someone with a pass, a press ticket." This is reflected in his characters, he observed, who are "constantly being addressed by the wrong name, with jokes and false trails to do with the confusion of having two names."<ref name="Write"/> Stoppard attended the Dolphin School, a [[Preparatory school (United Kingdom)|preparatory school]]  in Nottinghamshire, and later [[Pocklington School]], a [[public school (United Kingdom)|private school]] in the [[East Riding of Yorkshire]]. Pocklington School built the Tom Stoppard Theatre in his name, which he opened in May 2001.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sir Tom opens school arts centre|url=https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/7943717.sir-tom-opens-school-arts-centre/|website=York Press|date=2 May 2001|access-date=1 December 2025|language=en}}</ref>

Stoppard left school at 17 and began work as a journalist for the ''[[Western Daily Press]]'' in Bristol.<ref name="BBC"/> Years later, he came to regret the decision to forgo a university education, but at the time, he loved his work as a journalist and was passionate about his career.<ref name="BBC"/> He worked at the paper from 1954 until 1958, when the ''[[Bristol Post|Bristol Evening World]]'' offered Stoppard the position of feature writer, humour columnist, and secondary drama critic, which took him into the world of theatre. At the [[Bristol Old Vic]], a well-regarded regional [[repertory company]], Stoppard formed friendships with director [[John Boorman]] and actor [[Peter O'Toole]] early in their careers. In Bristol, he became known more for his strained attempts at humour and unstylish clothes than for his writing.<ref name=sal/>

==Career==
=== Early work ===
Stoppard wrote short radio plays in 1953–54 and by 1960 he had completed his first stage play, ''A Walk on the Water'', which was developed and retitled ''[[Enter a Free Man]]'' (1968).<ref Name="BBC"/> He said the work owed much to [[Robert Bolt]]'s ''[[Flowering Cherry]]'' and [[Arthur Miller]]'s ''[[Death of a Salesman]]''. Within a week of sending ''A Walk on the Water'' to an agent, Stoppard received his version of the "Hollywood-style telegrams that change struggling young artists' lives". His first play was optioned, staged in [[Hamburg]], then broadcast on [[ITV (TV network)|British Independent Television]] in 1963.<ref name=sal/> From September 1962 until April 1963, Stoppard worked in London as a drama critic for ''Scene'' magazine, writing reviews and interviews under his own name and the pseudonym [[William Boot]] (taken from [[Evelyn Waugh]]'s ''[[Scoop (novel)| Scoop]]''). In 1964, a [[Ford Foundation]] grant enabled Stoppard to spend five months writing in a Berlin mansion, emerging with a one-act play titled ''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear'', which later evolved into his Tony-winning play ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]''.<ref name=sal/>

In the following years, Stoppard produced several works for radio, television and the theatre, including ''"M" is for Moon Among Other Things'' (1964), ''A Separate Peace'' (1966) and ''If You're Glad I'll Be Frank'' (1966). On 11 April 1967&nbsp;– following acclaim at the 1966 [[Edinburgh Festival]]{{Spaced en dash}}the opening of ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' in a [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]] production at the [[Old Vic]] made Stoppard an overnight success. ''[[Jumpers (play)|Jumpers]]'' (1972) places a professor of [[moral philosophy]] in a murder mystery thriller alongside a slew of radical gymnasts. ''[[Travesties]]'' (1974) explored the "[[Wildean]]" possibilities arising from the fact that [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[James Joyce]], and [[Tristan Tzara]] had all been in [[Zürich]] during the [[First World War]].<ref name="OCTP"/> Stoppard wrote one novel, ''[[Lord Malquist and Mr Moon]]'' (1966). Its narrative follows the failing historian Moon, who takes the job of [[James Boswell|Boswell]] to the aristocrat Malquist. While not critically successful, the novel contains character tropes and themes that would later be used in Stoppard's plays.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Rabinowitz |first1=Peter J. |title=The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard |date=2001 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-0-521-64592-8 |pages=55–67 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-companion-to-tom-stoppard/narrative-difficulties-in-lord-malquist-and-mr-moon/DEA380F8B8161C8597FBE4F72BAF75A4 |chapter=Narrative difficulties in Lord Malquist and Mr Moon}}</ref>

=== 1980s ===
In the 1980s, in addition to writing his own works, Stoppard translated many plays into English, including works by [[Sławomir Mrożek]], [[Johann Nestroy]], [[Arthur Schnitzler]], and [[Václav Havel]]. Stoppard became influenced by the works of Polish and Czech absurdists. He was co-opted into the [[Outrapo]] group, a far-from-serious French movement to improve actors' stage technique through science.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://outrapo.voila.net/page4/index.html|title=L'acteur cérébral|last=von Bariter|first=Milie|work=Contrainte du moment|publisher=Outrapo|access-date=6 September 2008}}{{Dead link|date=August 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

In 1982 Stoppard premiered his play ''[[The Real Thing (play)|The Real Thing]]''. The story revolves around a male-female relationship and the struggle between the actress and the member of a group fighting to free a Scottish soldier imprisoned for burning a memorial wreath during a protest. The leading roles were originated by [[Roger Rees]] and [[Felicity Kendal]]. The story examines various constructs of honesty including a [[play within a play]], to explore the theme of reality versus appearance. It has been described as one of Stoppard's "most popular, enduring and autobiographical plays."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/11362609/archive-telegraph-theatre-reviews-tom-stoppard-plays.html|title=The Telegraph's original verdicts on Tom Stoppard's plays|last=Baddeley|first=Anna|newspaper=The Daily Telegraph|date=29 January 2015|access-date=16 July 2019|issn=0307-1235}}</ref>

The play made its [[Broadway (theatre)|Broadway]] transfer in 1984, directed by [[Mike Nichols]], starring [[Jeremy Irons]] and [[Glenn Close]], with [[Christine Baranski]] in a supporting role. The transfer was a critical success with ''[[The New York Times]]'' theatre critic [[Frank Rich]] declaring, "The Broadway version of ''The Real Thing''—a substantial revision of the original London production—is not only Mr. Stoppard's most moving play, but also the most bracing play that anyone has written about love and marriage in years."<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1984/01/06/theater/theater-tom-stoppard-s-real-thing.html|title= THEATER: TOM STOPPARD'S ''REAL THING''|work= [[The New York Times]]|date= 6 January 1984|access-date= 14 June 2022|last1= Rich|first1= Frank}}</ref> The production earned seven [[Tony Award]] nominations, winning five awards, including [[Tony Award for Best Play|Best Play]], as well as awards for Nichols, Irons, Close, and Baranski.<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1984/06/04/theater/real-thing-and-la-cage-dominate-the-tony-awards.html|title= 'REAL THING' AND 'LA CAGE' DOMINATE THE TONY AWARDS|work= [[The New York Times]]|date= 4 June 1984|access-date= 14 June 2022|last1= Freedman|first1= Samuel G.}}</ref> This was Stoppard's third Tony Award for Best Play, following ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' in 1968 and ''[[Travesties]]'' in 1976.

In 1985, Stoppard co-wrote ''[[Brazil (1985 film)|Brazil]]'', a [[satirical]] science-fiction dark comedy film, with [[Terry Gilliam]] and [[Charles McKeown]]. The film received near universal acclaim. [[Pauline Kael]], critic for ''[[The New Yorker]]'', declared "Visually, it's an original, bravura piece of moviemaking... Gilliam's vision is an organic thing on the screen—and that's a considerable achievement".<ref>{{cite magazine|url= https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/brazil|title= Movies: Brazil|magazine= [[The New Yorker]]|access-date= 14 June 2022}}</ref> Stoppard, Gilliam, and McKeown were nominated for the [[Academy Award]] for [[Best Original Screenplay]], losing to ''[[Witness (1985 film)|Witness]]''. Stoppard went on to write the scripts for [[Steven Spielberg]]'s films ''[[Empire of the Sun (film)|Empire of the Sun]]'' (1987), based on the book by [[J. G. Ballard]], and ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]]'' (1989). Spielberg later stated that though Stoppard was uncredited for the latter of the two, "he was responsible for almost every line of dialogue in the film".<ref name="Empire: Features">{{cite web|url=http://www.empireonline.com/indy/day17/ |title=Empire: Features |work=[[Empire (magazine)|Empire]] |access-date=8 July 2009}}</ref>

For his 1985 appearance on BBC Radio 4's ''[[Desert Island Discs]]'', Stoppard chose "[[Careless Love]]" by [[Bessie Smith]] as his favourite track. He also selected ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'' in two languages by [[Dante Alighieri]] as his chosen book and a plastic football as his luxury item.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009mnb0 | title=BBC Radio 4 – Desert Island Discs, Tom Stoppard }}</ref><ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p009mnb0 | title=Desert Island Discs – Tom Stoppard – BBC Sounds }}</ref>

=== 1990s ===
[[File:Stoppard 02 (cropped).jpg|thumb|upright=0.7|Stoppard in 1990]]
In 1993, Stoppard wrote ''[[Arcadia (play)|Arcadia]]'', a play in which he explores the interaction between two modern academics and the residents of a [[Derbyshire]] country house in the early 19th century, including aristocrats, tutors and the fleeting presence, unseen on stage, of [[Lord Byron]]. The themes of the play include the philosophical implications of the [[second law of thermodynamics]], [[Romantic literature in English|Romantic literature]], and the [[English landscape garden|English picturesque style of garden design]].<ref name =act>{{cite web | url = https://www.act-sf.org/content/dam/act/education_department/words_on_plays/Arcadia%20Words%20on%20Plays%20(2013).pdf | title = Words on Plays: Arcadia | author = Perloff, Carey | date = 2013 | access-date = 11 October 2020 | website = act.sf | archive-date = 27 March 2021 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20210327191914/https://www.act-sf.org/content/dam/act/education_department/words_on_plays/Arcadia%20Words%20on%20Plays%20(2013).pdf | url-status = dead }}</ref>

''Arcadia'' was first performed at the [[Royal National Theatre]] in a production directed by [[Trevor Nunn]] and starring [[Rufus Sewell]], [[Felicity Kendal]], [[Bill Nighy]], [[Harriet Walter]] and [[Emma Fielding]]. It won the 1993 [[Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play]]. A year later the play made its transfer on [[Broadway (theatre)|Broadway]] starring [[Billy Crudup]], [[Blair Brown]], [[Victor Garber]] and [[Robert Sean Leonard]]. The production was well received with [[Vincent Canby]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' writing, that while "There are real difficulties with this production... [there are] also great pleasures, not the least of which are Mark Thompson's sets and costumes. Mostly, though, there are Mr. Stoppard's grandly eclectic obsessions and his singular gifts as a playwright. Attend to them."<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/31/theater/theater-review-arcadia-stoppard-s-comedy-of-1809-and-now.html#:~:text=%22Arcadia%22%20demands%20something%20more%20than,by%20two%20sets%20of%20characters.|title= THEATER REVIEW: ARCADIA; Stoppard's Comedy Of 1809 And Now|website= [[The New York Times]]|date= 31 March 1995|access-date= 14 June 2022|last1= Canby|first1= Vincent}}</ref> The production received three nominations at the [[49th Tony Awards]] including [[Tony Award for Best Play|Best Play]], losing to [[Terrence McNally]]'s ''[[Love! Valour! Compassion!]]''.

Stoppard wrote the screenplay for ''[[Shakespeare in Love]]'' (1998) with [[Marc Norman]]. The film, a [[romantic comedy]], focuses on a fictional story involving [[William Shakespeare]] and his romance with a young woman who is an inspiration for the play ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]''. The film starred an ensemble cast including [[Joseph Fiennes]], [[Gwyneth Paltrow]], [[Geoffrey Rush]], [[Colin Firth]], and [[Judi Dench]]. It was a critical and financial success and went on to earn seven [[Academy Awards]] including [[Academy Award for Best Picture|Best Picture]]. Stoppard received his second career Oscar nomination and first win for [[Best Original Screenplay]]. He also received the [[Golden Globe Award]] for the screenplay.<ref name=Times08>{{cite news|url=https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/sir-tom-stoppard-on-writing-shakespeare-in-love-7w2wtj5tk7h |title=Sir Tom Stoppard on writing Shakespeare in Love |newspaper=[[The Times]] |author= Teeman, Tim|date=11 February 2008|access-date = 2 December 2025}}</ref>

=== 2000s ===
''[[The Coast of Utopia]]'' (2002) was a trilogy of plays Stoppard wrote about the philosophical arguments among Russian revolutionary figures in the late 19th century. The trilogy comprises ''Voyage'', ''Shipwreck'', and ''Salvage''. Major figures in the play include [[Mikhail Bakunin]], [[Ivan Turgenev]], and [[Alexander Herzen]].<ref>{{cite web | title=The Coast of Utopia: Voyage | url=http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/The%20Coast%20of%20Utopia%3A%20Voyage+1334.twl | publisher=Royal National Theatre | date=2008 | access-date=12 October 2020 | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110518091558/http://www.nationaltheatre.org.uk/The%20Coast%20of%20Utopia:%20Voyage+1334.twl | archive-date=18 May 2011 | df=dmy-all }}</ref> The title comes from a chapter in [[Avrahm Yarmolinsky]]'s book ''[[Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism]]'' (1959). The play premiered in 2002 at the [[Royal National Theatre|National Theatre]], directed by Trevor Nunn; its total length spanned nine hours. The play received three [[Laurence Olivier Award]] nominations including Best New Play, ultimately losing in all its categories. In 2006 it made its Broadway premiere in a production starring [[Billy Crudup]], [[Jennifer Ehle]], and [[Ethan Hawke]]. The play received 10 nominations winning seven Tony awards including for [[Tony Award for Best Play|Best Play]], Stoppard's fourth win in the category.<ref>{{Cite news|title=Stoppard play sweeps Tony awards|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6739885.stm|work = [[BBC News]]|date=11 June 2007|access-date=1 December 2025}}</ref>

''[[Rock 'n' Roll (play)|Rock 'n' Roll]]'' (2006) was set in [[Cambridge]] and [[Prague]]. The play explored the culture of 1960s [[rock music]], especially the persona of [[Syd Barrett]] and the political challenge of the Czech band [[The Plastic People of the Universe]], mirroring the contrast between liberal society in England and the repressive Czech state [[History of Czechoslovakia#Aftermath|after the Warsaw Pact intervention]] in the [[Prague Spring]].<ref name =rnr>{{cite web | url = https://www.act-sf.org/content/dam/act/Words%20on%20Plays/PDFs/Rock%20%27n%27%20Roll%20Words%20on%20Plays%20(2008).pdf | title = Words on Plays: Rock'n'Roll | author = Broderson, Elizabeth | date = 2008 | access-date = 11 October 2020 | website = act.sf }}{{Dead link|date=July 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Stoppard served on the advisory board of the magazine ''[[Standpoint (magazine)|Standpoint]]'', and was instrumental in its foundation, giving the opening speech at its launch.<ref>{{cite web|author=Stoppard, Tom |url=http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/Speech-at-the-Standpoint-Launch |title=ONLINE ONLY: Speech at the Standpoint Launch |work=Standpoint |date=13 June 2008 |access-date=8 July 2009}}</ref> He was also a patron of the [[Shakespeare Schools Festival]], a charity that enables school children across the UK to perform Shakespeare in professional theatres.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.shakespeareschools.org/about-us/patrons |title=Shakespeare Schools Foundation Patrons |website=Shakespeare Schools Foundation |access-date=12 July 2021 |archive-date=11 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211165434/https://www.shakespeareschools.org/about-us/patrons |url-status=dead }}</ref> Stoppard was appointed president of the [[London Library]] in 2002 and vice-president in 2017 following the election of [[Sir Tim Rice]] as president.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/about-us/patron-president-trustees-staff/patron-and-president|title=Patrons and Presidents|publisher=londonlibrary.co.uk|access-date=28 February 2017|archive-date=1 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170301011734/http://www.londonlibrary.co.uk/about-us/patron-president-trustees-staff/patron-and-president|url-status=dead}}</ref>

=== 2010s ===
[[File:Tom Stoppard 2.jpg|thumb|upright=0.6|Stoppard in 2011]]
For [[Joe Wright]], Stoppard adapted [[Leo Tolstoy]]'s ''[[Anna Karenina]]'' into the [[Anna Karenina (2012 film)|2012 film adaptation]] starring [[Keira Knightley]]. Film critic [[Lisa Schwarzbaum]] for ''[[Entertainment Weekly]]'' praised the film, writing "Stoppard—himself a master of puzzle-like construction in fine plays including Arcadia—supplies an excellently clean, delicately balanced script."<ref>{{cite magazine|url= https://ew.com/article/2012/11/16/anna-karenina-review/|title= Anna Karenina review|magazine= [[Entertainment Weekly]]|access-date= 14 June 2022|archive-date= 14 June 2022|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220614141738/https://ew.com/article/2012/11/16/anna-karenina-review/|url-status= dead}}</ref>

In 2012, Stoppard wrote a five-part limited series for television, ''[[Parade's End (TV series)|Parade's End]]'', which revolves around a love triangle between a conservative English aristocrat, his mean socialite wife and a young suffragette. The series premiered on [[BBC Two]], starring [[Benedict Cumberbatch]] and [[Rebecca Hall]]. The series received widespread acclaim from critics with ''[[The Independent]]''{{'}}s [[Grace Dent]] proclaiming it "one of the finest things the BBC has ever made".<ref>{{cite news |author= Dent, Grace |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/grace-dent-on-television-parades-end-bbc2-8113316.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220525/https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/grace-dent-on-television-parades-end-bbc2-8113316.html |archive-date=25 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live |title=Grace Dent on Television: Parade's End, BBC2 |work=[[The Independent]] |date=9 September 2012 |access-date=23 December 2012 |location=London}}</ref> ''[[IndieWire]]'' declared, "''Parade's End'' is wonderful accomplishment, smart, adult television".<ref>{{cite web|url= https://www.indiewire.com/2013/03/recap-parades-end-brings-dense-miniseries-to-a-quiet-close-in-finale-101069/|title= Parade's End' Brings Dense Miniseries To A Quiet Close In Finale|author=
Jagernauth, Kevin|website= [[IndieWire]]|date= March 2013|access-date= 2 December 2025|archive-date= 14 June 2022|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20220614141737/https://www.indiewire.com/2013/03/recap-parades-end-brings-dense-miniseries-to-a-quiet-close-in-finale-101069/|url-status= dead}}</ref> Stoppard received a [[British Academy Television Award]] and [[Primetime Emmy Award]] nomination for the series.<ref>{{cite news|url= https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/tv/la-et-st-emmys-benedict-cumberbatch-parades-end-sherlock-20130718-story.html|title= Emmys 2013: Benedict Cumberbatch on 'Parade's End|work= [[Los Angeles Times]]|date= 19 July 2013|access-date= 3 December 2025|author= Blake, Meredith}}</ref>

It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century [[Vienna]]. ''[[Leopoldstadt (play)|Leopoldstadt]]'' premiered in January 2020 at [[Wyndham's Theatre]]<ref name="Brown, Mark"/> and went on to win the [[Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play]].<ref name="Wolf"/><ref name="broadway.com"/> It then transferred to Broadway, opening on 2 October 2022.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Dowd |first1=Maureen |title=Tom Stoppard Finally Looks Into His Shadow |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/theater/tom-stoppard-leopoldstadt-broadway.html |access-date=26 September 2022 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=7 September 2022}}</ref> The play was nominated for six [[76th Tony Awards|Tony Awards]] and won four, including [[Tony Award for Best Play|Best Play]].

== Screenwriting ==
Stoppard also co-wrote  screenplays including ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]]'' (1989) and ''[[Shakespeare in Love]]'' (1998).<ref name="Empire: Features"/> He also worked on ''[[Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith]]'', though again he received no official or formal credit in this [[script doctor]] role.<ref>{{cite web| url = https://www.timeout.com/newyork/theater/tom-stoppard-interview-ive-always-been-strangely-eclectic| title = Tom Stoppard interview: 'I've always been strangely eclectic'| work = Time Out New York| date = 17 September 2014|access-date = 5 December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{Cite magazine|title=Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-reviews/star-wars-episode-iii-revenge-of-the-sith-105698/|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=19 May 2005|access-date=30 November 2025|language=en-US|first=Peter|last=Travers}}</ref> He worked in a similar capacity with [[Tim Burton]] on his film ''[[Sleepy Hollow (film)|Sleepy Hollow]]''.<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/media/1999/nov/30/tvandradio.television2 Morris, Mark (30 November 1999). "Get me Tom Stoppard"]. ''[[The Guardian]]''  Retrieved 9 May 2020.</ref> His [[Philosophical fiction|philosophical]] [[Comedy (drama)|comedy]] [[radio drama]] ''[[Darkside (radio play)|Darkside]]'' (2013) was written for [[BBC Radio 2]] to celebrate the 40th anniversary of [[Pink Floyd]]'s album ''[[The Dark Side of the Moon]]''.<ref name="DarkSide"/>

==Themes==
=== Existentialism ===
''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'' (1966–67) was Stoppard's first major play to gain recognition. The story of ''[[Hamlet]]'' as told from the viewpoint of two courtiers echoes [[Samuel Beckett|Beckett]] in its double act repartee, [[existential ]]themes and language play.<ref name="OCTP">"Stoppard, Tom"  ''The Oxford Companion to Theatre and Performance''. Edited by [[Dennis Kennedy (author)| Dennis Kennedy]]. [[Oxford University Press]] Inc.</ref> "{{va|Stoppardian}}" became a term describing works using wit and comedy while addressing philosophical concepts.<ref name="OCTP"/> Critic [[Dennis Kennedy (author)| Dennis Kennedy]] commented:<ref name="OCTP"/>

<blockquote>It established several characteristics of Stoppard's [[dramaturgy]]: his word-playing intellectuality, audacious, paradoxical, and self-conscious theatricality, and preference for reworking pre-existing narratives... Stoppard's plays have been sometimes dismissed as pieces of clever showmanship, lacking in substance, social commitment, or emotional weight. His theatrical surfaces serve to conceal rather than reveal their author's views, and his fondness for towers of paradox spirals away from social comment. This is seen most clearly in his comedies ''[[The Real Inspector Hound]]'' (1968) and ''[[After Magritte]]'' (1970), which create their humour through highly formal devices of reframing and juxtaposition.</blockquote>

Stoppard himself went so far as to declare  "I must stop compromising my plays with this whiff of social application. They must be entirely untouched by any suspicion of usefulness."<ref name=sal/> He acknowledges that he started off "as a language nerd", primarily enjoying linguistic and ideological playfulness, feeling early in his career that journalism was far better suited for presaging political change, than playwriting.<ref Name="BBC"/>

=== Intellectuality ===
The accusations of favouring intellectuality over political commitment or commentary were met with a change of tack, as Stoppard produced increasingly socially engaged work.<ref name="OCTP"/> From 1977, he became personally involved with human-rights issues, in particular with the situation of political dissidents in Central and Eastern Europe. In February 1977, he visited the [[Soviet Union]] and several Eastern European countries with a member of [[Amnesty International]].<ref name=sal/> In June, Stoppard met [[Vladimir Bukovsky]] in London and travelled to Czechoslovakia (then under communist control), where he met dissident playwright and future president [[Václav Havel]], whose writing he greatly admired.<ref name=sal/><ref Name="BBC"/> Stoppard became involved with ''[[Index on Censorship]]'', Amnesty International, and the [[Committee Against Psychiatric Abuse]] and wrote various newspaper articles and letters about human rights. He was instrumental in translating Havel's works into English. ''[[Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (play)|Every Good Boy Deserves Favour]]'' (1977), "a play for actors and orchestra", was based on a request by conductor/composer [[André Previn]] and was inspired by a meeting with a Russian exile. This play, as well as ''[[Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth]]'' (1979), ''The Coast of Utopia'' (2002),  ''Rock 'n' Roll'' (2006), and two works for television – ''[[Professional Foul]]'' (1977) and ''[[Squaring_the_Circle_(1984_play)|Squaring the Circle]]'' (1984) – all concern themes of censorship, rights abuses, and state repression.<ref name="OCTP"/>

Stoppard's later works sought greater interpersonal depths, whilst maintaining their intellectual playfulness. Stoppard stated that around 1982 he moved away from the "argumentative" works and more towards plays of the heart, as he became "less shy" about emotional openness. Discussing the later integration of heart and mind in his work, he commented, "I think I was too concerned when I set off, to have a firework go off every few seconds... I think I was always looking for the entertainer in myself and I seem to be able to entertain through manipulating language... [but] it's really about human beings, it's not really about language at all." ''The Real Thing'' (1982) uses a [[Metatheatre|meta-theatrical]] structure to explore the suffering that adultery can produce and ''The Invention of Love'' (1997) also investigates the pain of passion. ''Arcadia'' (1993) explores the meeting of [[chaos theory]], [[historiography]], and landscape gardening.<ref name="OCTP"/> He was inspired by a Trevor Nunn production of [[Maxim Gorky|Gorky]]'s ''[[Summerfolk]]'' to write a trilogy of "human" plays: ''The Coast of Utopia'' (''Voyage'', ''Shipwreck'' and ''Salvage'', 2002).<ref Name="BBC"/>

Stoppard commented that he loved the medium of theatre for how "adjustable" and independent from the text it was. His experience of writing for film was similar, offering the liberating opportunity to "play God", in control of creative reality. It often took four to five years from the first idea of a play to staging, as he made efforts to be as accurate in his research as possible.<ref Name="BBC"/>

==Personal life==
===Family and relationships===
[[File:Miriam and Tom Stoppard, NYC.jpg|thumb|alt=Man and woman posing closely together indoors|Miriam and Tom Stoppard, New York City, {{Circa|1985}}]]

Stoppard was married three times. His first marriage (1965–1972) was to Josie Ingle, a nurse.<ref name=stade>{{cite book|last1=Stade|first1=George |author2= Karen Karbiener|title=Encyclopedia of British Writers, 1800 to the Present, Volume 2|date=2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8160-7385-6|pages=467–69|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T7pVTz46T3cC|access-date=9 October 2015}}</ref> His second marriage (1972–92) was to [[Miriam Stoppard|Miriam Stern]]; they separated when he began a relationship with actress [[Felicity Kendal]].{{sfn|Kelly|2001|pp=33–34}}{{sfn|Kelly|2001|pp=242–243}} He also had a relationship with actress [[Sinéad Cusack]], but she made it clear she wished to remain married to [[Jeremy Irons]] and stay close to their two sons. Also, after she was reunited with a [[Richard Boyd Barrett|son she had given up for adoption]], she wished to spend time with him in Dublin rather than with Stoppard in the house they shared in France.<ref name="IT">{{cite news |title=Tom Stoppard: A Life — A great biography of a great playwright |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/tom-stoppard-a-life-a-great-biography-of-a-great-playwright-1.4377923 |newspaper= [[The Irish Times]] |last=Roche|first=Anthony|date=24 October 2020 |access-date=18 September 2021}}</ref> He had two sons from each of his first two marriages: Oliver Stoppard, Barnaby Stoppard, the actor [[Ed Stoppard]], and Will Stoppard, who is married to violinist [[Linzi Stoppard]].{{sfn|Kelly|2001|pp=242–243}} In 2014 he married [[Sabrina Guinness]].<ref name="Guinness">{{cite news |date=8 June 2014 |title=Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard marries brewery heiress Sabrina Guinness in Wimborne  |work=[[Bournemouth Echo]] |url=https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/11264225.playwright-sir-tom-stoppard-marries-brewery-heiress-sabrina-guinness-in-wimborne/ |access-date=9 May 2020}}</ref>

Stoppard's mother died in 1996. The family had not talked about their history and neither brother knew what had happened to the family left behind in Czechoslovakia.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.cet.ac.il/terezin/d-k9e6.htm+tom+stoppard+mother+beck%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26client%3Dsafari| title = Theresienstadt memorial archive website''Tom Stoppard Discloses his Past''| access-date = 21 February 2010| archive-date = 2 April 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170402081322/http://www.cet.ac.il/terezin/d-k9e6.htm+tom+stoppard+mother+beck%26cd%3D3%26hl%3Den%26ct%3Dclnk%26client%3Dsafari| url-status = dead}}</ref> In the early 1990s, with the fall of [[communism]], Stoppard found out that all four of his grandparents had been Jewish and had died in [[Theresienstadt concentration camp|Terezin]], [[Auschwitz]], and other camps, along with three of his mother's sisters.<ref>{{Cite magazine|title=Tom Stoppard Faces His Family's Past|url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/tom-stoppard-faces-his-familys-past|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2 October 2022|access-date=1 December 2025|issn=0028-792X|language=en-US|first=Andrew|last=Dickson}}</ref>

In 1998, following the deaths of his parents, he returned to Zlín for the first time in more than 50 years.<ref name="BBC"/> He expressed grief both for a lost father and a missing past, but he had no sense of being a survivor, stating: "I feel incredibly lucky not to have had to survive or die. It's a conspicuous part of what might be termed a charmed life."<ref name="Write">{{Cite news|title='You can't help being what you write'|url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/sep/06/stoppard.theatre|work=The Guardian|date=5 September 2008|access-date=30 November 2025|issn=0261-3077|language=en-GB|first=Maya|last=Jaggi|author-link=Maya Jaggi}}</ref>

Stoppard was a friend of journalist and [[popular historian]] [[Paul Johnson (writer)|Paul Johnson]], and dedicated his 1978 play ''[[Night and Day (play)|Night and Day]]'' to him.<ref name="w621">{{cite magazine | last=Johnson | first=Daniel | title=Tom Stoppard was himself to the end | magazine =[[The Spectator]] | date=29 November 2025 | url=https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/tom-stoppard-was-himself-to-the-end/ | access-date=4 December 2025}}</ref>

In 2013, Stoppard asked [[Hermione Lee]] to write his [[biography]].<ref name="IT"/> The book was published in 2020.

===Political views===

In 1979, the year of [[Margaret Thatcher]]'s [[1979 United Kingdom general election|election]], Stoppard noted to Paul Delaney: "I'm a [[Small-c conservative|conservative with a small c]]. I am a conservative in politics, literature, education and theatre."{{sfn|Kelly|2001|p=151}} In 2007, Stoppard described himself as a "timid [[libertarian]]".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,1675613-2,00.html|title=Theater: Elitist, Moi?|date=25 October 2007|magazine=Time}}</ref>

The [[Tom Stoppard Prize]] ({{Langx|cs|Cena Toma Stopparda}}) was created in 1983 under the [[Charter 77]] Foundation and is awarded to authors of Czech origin.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://art.ihned.cz/c1-51939310-cenu-toma-stopparda-ziskala-linhartova-za-knihu-ktera-vznikala-40-let |title=Cenu Toma Stopparda získala Linhartová za knihu, která vznikala 40 let |language=cs |work=[[Hospodářské noviny]] |date=26 May 2011 |access-date=30 September 2013 }}</ref>

In 2014, Stoppard publicly backed "[[Hacked Off]]" and its campaign towards press self-regulation by "safeguarding the press from political interference while also giving vital protection to the vulnerable".<ref>{{cite magazine|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/benedict-cumberbatch-alfonso-cuaron-maggie-689289/|title=Benedict Cumberbatch, Alfonso Cuaron, Maggie Smith Back U.K. Press Regulation|author= Szalai, Georg|date=18 March 2014|magazine=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]|access-date = 5 December 2025}}</ref>

===Death===
On 29 November 2025, Stoppard died peacefully at his home in [[Dorset]], England, at the age of 88, surrounded by members of his family.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74xe49q7vlo |title=Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard dies at 88 |author= Jackson, Patrick |work=[[BBC News]]|date=29 November 2025 |access-date=29 November 2025}}</ref>  Many statements in tribute were made and [[Charles III|King Charles]] issued a statement

{{Quote|text=My wife and I are deeply saddened to learn of the death of one of our greatest writers, Sir Tom Stoppard.
A dear friend who wore his genius lightly, he could, and did, turn his pen to any subject, challenging, moving and inspiring his audiences, borne from his own personal history.
We send our most heartfelt sympathy to his beloved family. Let us all take comfort in his immortal line: "Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else".<ref>{{cite web |last=Hornik |first=Caitlin |date=29 November 2025 |title=Tom Stoppard Death: Oscar and Tony Winning Playwright Dies Aged 88 |url=https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/films/news/tom-stoppard-death-sir-plays-age-b2874959.html |newspaper=[[The Independent]] |location=UK}}</ref>
|multiline=yes
|author=King Charles III}}

== Legacy and honours ==
Stoppard was one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation<ref name="OCTP"/> and was critically compared with [[William Shakespeare]] and [[George Bernard Shaw]].<ref name=NYT /> After his death, ''[[The New Yorker]]'' wrote that "he left behind a theatre changed by his blistering intellect and blazing success" and that he was "theatre's primary influence".<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Shaw |first1=Helen |title=Tom Stoppard's Radical Invitation |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/tom-stoppards-radical-invitation |access-date=4 December 2025 |magazine=The New Yorker |date=30 November 2025}}</ref> Writing in ''[[The Guardian]]'', Michael Billington compared him to [[Samuel Beckett]], [[Michael Frayn]], and [[Harold Pinter]] with "a capacity to make ideas dance", and described his main achievement as showing "that audiences were open to plays about complex ideas". He also noted Stoppard's emotional and political themes in plays such as ''Arcadia'' and ''Professional Foul''.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Billington |first1=Michael |author-link = Michael Billington (critic)|title=Tom Stoppard: a brilliant dramatist who always raised the temperature of the room |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/nov/29/tom-stoppard-a-brilliant-dramatist-who-always-raised-the-temperature-of-the-room |access-date=4 December 2025 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=29 November 2025}}</ref> ''[[The Wall Street Journal]]'' stated that he

{{Quote|text=may or may not have been the greatest playwright of the past half century or so, but he was undoubtedly the most intellectually daring, historically inquisitive and encyclopedically knowledgeable. If you throw in the rhetorical brilliance, the heart and the boundless wit that coursed through his greatest works, his pre-eminence is hard to challenge. Across his career he collected five Tony Awards for best play (a record) and an Oscar for the screenplay for ''Shakespeare in Love''—probably the work that brought him the largest audience.
The theater's importance as a locus of intelligent inquiry and intellectual ferment—not momentous, alas—owes a great debt to his influence.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Isherwood |first1=Charles |title=Remembering Tom Stoppard, a Playwright of Thrilling Intellect |url=https://www.wsj.com/arts-culture/theater/remembering-tom-stoppard-a-playwright-of-thrilling-intellect-3fb9988b |access-date=4 December 2025 |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]]' |date=30 November 2025}}</ref>
|multiline=yes
|author=Charles Isherwood}}

=== Awards ===
{{Main|List of awards and nominations received by Tom Stoppard}}

In July 2013 Stoppard was awarded the [[PEN Pinter Prize]] for "determination to tell things as they are".<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23502671 |title=Sir Tom Stoppard wins annual Pen Pinter prize |work=BBC News |date=31 July 2013 |access-date=31 July 2013}}</ref>

In July 2017, Stoppard was elected an [[Fellow of the British Academy|Honorary Fellow]] of the [[British Academy]] (HonFBA), the United Kingdom's [[national academy]] for the humanities and social sciences.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.britac.ac.uk/news/elections-british-academy-celebrate-diversity-uk-research|title=Elections to the British Academy celebrate the diversity of UK research|date=21 July 2017|publisher=The British Academy}}</ref> Stoppard was appointed [[Cameron Mackintosh]] Visiting {{not a typo|Professor}} of Contemporary Theatre at [[St Catherine's College, Oxford]], for the academic year 2017/18.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sir Tom Stoppard appointed Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre {{!}} University of Oxford|url=https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-06-09-sir-tom-stoppard-appointed-visiting-professor-contemporary-theatre|website=www.ox.ac.uk|date=9 June 2017|access-date=1 December 2025|language=en}}</ref>

=== Representations in art===
Stoppard has been represented in various forms of art. He sat for sculptor [[Alan Thornhill]], and a bronze head is now in public collection, situated with the Stoppard papers in the reading room of the [[Harry Ransom Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00179.xml |title=Inventory of Tom Stoppard papers and location of bronze head |publisher=Research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080 |access-date=8 July 2009 |archive-date=18 February 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120218060829/http://research.hrc.utexas.edu:8080/hrcxtf/view?docId=ead/00179.xml |url-status=dead }}</ref> The terracotta remains in the collection of the artist in London.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://alanthornhill.co.uk/sm_011.htm |title=image of Stoppard bust by sculptor Alan Thornhill |publisher=Alanthornhill.co.uk |access-date=8 July 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090629183519/http://alanthornhill.co.uk/sm_011.htm |archive-date=29 June 2009 }}</ref> The correspondence file relating to the Stoppard bust is held in the archive of the [[Henry Moore Foundation]]'s [[Henry Moore Institute]] in [[Leeds]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/matrix_engine/content.php?page_id=584 |title=HMI Archive |publisher=Henry-moore-fdn.co.uk |access-date=8 July 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090112193428/http://www.henry-moore-fdn.co.uk/matrix_engine/content.php?page_id=584 |archive-date=12 January 2009}}</ref>

Stoppard also sat for the sculptor [[Angela Conner]], who was a friend, and his bronze portrait bust is on display in the grounds of [[Chatsworth House]]<ref>{{Cite web|title=Portrait busts|url=https://www.chatsworth.org/visit-chatsworth/chatsworth-estate/art-archives/devonshire-collections/sculpture/portrait-busts/|website=www.chatsworth.org|access-date=1 December 2025}}</ref> in the [[Derbyshire Dales]].

===Archive===
[[File:Tom Stoppard at University of Texas at Austin.jpg|thumb|upright|Stoppard at the [[Harry Ransom Center]], 1996|alt=Stoppard at the [[Harry Ransom Center]], 1996]]

Stoppard's papers are housed at the [[Harry Ransom Center]] at the [[University of Texas at Austin]]. The archive was first established by Stoppard in 1991 and continues to grow. The collection consists of typescript and handwritten drafts, revision pages, outlines, and notes; production material, including cast lists, set drawings, schedules, and photographs; theatre programmes; posters; advertisements; clippings; page and galley proofs; dust jackets; correspondence; legal documents and financial papers, including passports, contracts, and royalty and account statements; itineraries; appointment books and diary sheets; photographs; sheet music; sound recordings; a scrapbook; artwork; minutes of meetings; and publications.<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingaid.cfm?eadid=00179p1
| title = Tom Stoppard: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Center
| website = norman.hrc.utexas.edu
| access-date = 29 February 2016
}}</ref>

==Published works==
The [[British Library]] published a comprehensive and substantial bibliography for Stoppard in 2010: ''Tom Stoppard: A Bibliographical History''. This also included a [[CD-ROM]] containing illustrations.<ref name = "Meyers"/><ref name="B&W">{{citation |author1=Baker, William |title=Tom Stoppard: A Bibliographical History |year=2010 |location=London |publisher=[[British Library]] |isbn=978-0-7123-4966-6 |author2=Wachs, Gerald}}</ref>

===Novel===
* 1966: ''[[Lord Malquist and Mr Moon]]'', Stoppard's only novel<ref name="Rabinowitz">{{citation |author=Rabinowitz, Peter J |title=Narrative difficulties in Lord Malquist and Mr Moon |work=The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard |pages=55–67 |year=2001 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |doi=10.1017/CCOL0521641780.005 |isbn=978-0-521-64592-8}}</ref>

===Theatre===
* 1960: ''A Walk on the Water'', which was televised in 1963<ref name="Britannica">{{Cite encyclopedia |title=A Walk on the Water |encyclopedia=Britannica}}</ref>
* 1965: ''The Gamblers'' – based on the novel ''[[The Gambler (novel)|The Gambler]]'' by [[Dostoevsky]]
* 1966: ''Tango'' – adapted from [[Sławomir Mrożek]]'s play and [[Nicholas Bethell, 4th Baron Bethell|Nicholas Bethell]]'s translation, it premiered at the [[Aldwych Theatre]], London
* 1966: ''[[Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead]]'', first staged at the [[Edinburgh Festival Fringe]]<ref>{{cite news |last1=Akbar |first1=Arifa |last2=Morgan |first2=Harry |date=2 August 2010 |title=Edinburgh: Cradle of shows that conquered the world |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/features/edinburgh-cradle-of-shows-that-conquered-the-world-2041216.html |access-date=2 December 2025 |work=[[The Independent]]}}</ref><ref name="Chrono">{{cite web |author=Hutchind, Michael H |date=14 August 2006 |title=A Tom Stoppard Bibliography: Chronology |url=https://www.sondheimguide.com/Stoppard/chronology.html |access-date=2 December 2025 |work=The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide}}</ref> on 24 August 1966, by the Oxford Theatre Group. The play debuted in London with a production at [[The Old Vic]]<ref name="Alberge">{{cite news |last=Alberge |first=Dalya |date=2 November 2013 |title=National Theatre: Night of the stars celebrates 50 years |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/nov/03/national-theatre-50th-anniversary-celebration |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref> on 11 April 1967.<ref name="mberry">{{cite web |author=Michael Berry |date=24 May 2004 |title=Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead |url=http://www.sff.net/people/mberry/rosen.htp |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080516000532/http://www.sff.net/people/mberry/rosen.htp |archive-date=16 May 2008 |access-date=23 June 2008 |publisher=Michael Berry's Web Pages}}</ref>
* 1968: ''[[Enter a Free Man]]'' –  first performed on 28 March 1968 at the [[St. Martin's Theatre]] in London.<ref name="Enter">{{Cite book |last=Stoppard |first=Tom |title=Enter a Free Man |publisher=[[Faber and Faber]] |isbn=0-571-08794-9 |location=London |publication-date=1968 |pages=7}}</ref> As it consists largely of material from his 1960 play ''A Walk on the Water'', it has sometimes been described as Stoppard's first play.<ref name="Barnes">{{Cite news |last=Barnes |first=Clive |date=18 December 1974 |title=Stage: Stoppard's 'Enter a Free Man' |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1974/12/18/archives/stage-stoppards-enter-a-free-man-his-first-drama-has-new-york.html |access-date=3 December 2025 |work=[[The New York Times]] |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
* 1968: ''[[The Real Inspector Hound]]''  – the first performance took place at the [[Criterion Theatre]] in London on 17 June 1968
* 1969: ''Albert's Bridge'' – premiered at St. Mary's Hall in [[Edinburgh]]
* 1969: ''If You're Glad I'll Be Frank'' – premiered at St Mary's Hall in [[Edinburgh]]
* 1970: ''[[After Magritte]]'' – frequently performed as a companion piece to ''The Real Inspector Hound''
* 1971: ''Dogg's Our Pet'' – first performed at the [[Almost Free Theatre]] on 7 December 1971<ref name="Chrono"/>
* 1972: ''[[Jumpers (play)|Jumpers]]'' – first performed by the National Theatre Company at the [[Old Vic Theatre]], London, on 2 February 1972<ref name="Jumpers playtext">{{cite book |author=Stoppard, Tom |title=Jumpers |date=1972 |publisher=[[Faber and Faber]] |isbn=0571099785}}</ref>
* 1972: ''[[Artist Descending a Staircase]]'', a radio play, originally broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 14 November 1972. A stage adaptation, written by Stoppard, was first performed at the [[King's Head Theatre]], Islington, London in 1988, and later transferred to The [[Duke of York's Theatre]], London. The title alludes to [[Marcel Duchamp]]'s 1912 painting ''[[Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2]]''.<ref>{{cite web |date=1 December 1989 |title=Review/Theater; Art Imitates Art in a Stoppard Play |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1989/12/01/theater/review-theater-art-imitates-art-in-a-stoppard-play.html|first=Frank|last=Rich|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref>
* 1974: ''[[Travesties]]'' – first produced at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 10 June 1974, by the [[Royal Shakespeare Company]]
* 1976: ''[[Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land]]'' – first performed as an Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club presentation at Interaction's Almost Free Theatre on 6 April 1976<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tom Stoppard's "Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land" and "Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth," reviewed in 1979 by Don Shewey |url=http://www.donshewey.com/theater_reviews/dirty_linen.html |access-date=16 June 2025 |website=www.donshewey.com}}</ref>
* 1976: ''[[15-Minute Hamlet]]''
* 1977: ''[[Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (play)|Every Good Boy Deserves Favour]]'' – written at the request of [[André Previn]] (the play calls for a full orchestra)
* 1978: ''[[Night and Day (play)|Night and Day]]'', which won the [[Evening Standard Theatre Awards|''Evening Standard'' Award for Best Play]]<ref>{{cite web |date=10 April 2012 |title=Evening Standard Theatre Awards 1955–2000 |url=https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/theatre/evening-standard-theatre-awards-19552000-7303274.html |access-date=16 September 2021 |work=[[Evening Standard]] |location=UK}}</ref>
* 1979: ''[[Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth]]'' – two plays written to be performed together
* 1979: ''[[Undiscovered Country]]'' – first produced at the [[Olivier Theatre]] in [[London]], Stoppard's play is an adaptation of ''{{ill|Das weite Land (play|lt=Das weite Land|de|Das weite Land}}'' by the Austrian playwright [[Arthur Schnitzler]], which focuses on 1890s [[Vienna|Viennese]] society, demonstrating the effects of upper class codes of behaviour on human relationships.<ref>Stoppard plays at http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/stoppard-tom.html#33484 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121128005313/http://www.doollee.com/PlaywrightsS/stoppard-tom.html#33484 |date=28 November 2012 }}</ref>  The title of the play is a reference to the concept of the afterlife as the "undiscovered country" from the "[[To be, or not to be]]" soliloquy in ''[[Hamlet]]''.
* 1981: ''[[On the Razzle (play)|On the Razzle]]'' – based on ''[[Einen Jux will er sich machen]]'' by [[Johann Nestroy]], Stoppard's play opened on 18 September 1981 at the Royal National Theatre in London<ref>Stoppard, Tom (1981). ''On the Razzle'', [[Faber and Faber]]. {{ISBN|0-571-11835-6}}</ref>
* 1982: ''[[The Real Thing (play)|The Real Thing]]'' – opened at the [[Strand Theatre, London]], on 16 November 1982<ref name="Real">{{Cite book |last=Stoppard |first=Tom |title=The Real Thing |date=1984 |publisher=[[Faber and Faber]] |isbn=0-571-11983-2 |edition=Revised |location=London |pages=8}}</ref>  
* 1982: ''The (15 Minute) Dogg's Troupe Hamlet'' – a revision of his 1979 play, this was Stoppard's contribution to eight one-act plays by eight playwrights performed as ''Pieces of Eight''
* 1983: English libretto for ''[[The Love for Three Oranges]]'' (original opera by [[Sergei Prokofiev]])
* 1984: ''[[Rough Crossing]]'' – based on ''Play at the Castle'' by [[Ferenc Molnár]], it opened at the [[Lyttelton Theatre]] in London on 30 October 1984
* 1986: ''[[Dalliance]]'' – an adaptation of [[Arthur Schnitzler]]'s ''[[Liebelei (play)|Liebelei]]'',<ref>{{cite book |last=Jenkins |first=Anthony |title=The theatre of Tom Stoppard |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1989 |isbn=9780521379748 |location=Cambridge New York |page=155}}</ref> ''Dalliance'' was first performed at the [[Royal National Theatre|Lyttelton Theatre]], London, on 27 May 1986
* 1987: ''[[Largo Desolato]]'' – a translation of a play by [[Václav Havel]]
* 1988: ''[[Hapgood (play)|Hapgood]]'' – first performed at the Aldwych Theatre, London, on 8 March 1988
* 1993: ''[[Arcadia (play)|Arcadia]]'' – first performed at the [[Royal National Theatre]] in London on 13 April 1993, in a production directed by [[Trevor Nunn]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=National Theatre Archive |url=http://catalogue.nationaltheatre.org.uk/CalmView/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Roles&id=ROLE119142 |access-date=3 August 2021}}</ref>
* 1995: ''[[Indian Ink]]'' – based on Stoppard's radio play ''[[In the Native State]]'', the stage version of ''Indian Ink'' had its first performance at the [[Yvonne Arnaud Theatre]], Guildford, and opened at the [[Aldwych Theatre]], London, on 27 February 1995.<ref>Stoppard, Tom. [https://books.google.com/books?id=sR0YSeUweGwC&dq=%22Tom+Stoppard%22+%22Aldwych+Theatre%22+%22Indian+Ink%22&pg=PA365 Script] ''Tom Stoppard: Plays 5: Aracadia, The Real Thing, Night & Day, Indian Ink, Hapgood'', Macmillan, 1999, {{ISBN|0571197515}}, pp.365–366</ref>
* 1997: ''[[The Invention of Love]]'' – portrayed the life of poet [[A. E. Housman]], focusing specifically on his personal life and love for a college classmate. The play won both the [[Evening Standard Award|''Evening Standard'' Award]]  and the [[New York Drama Critics Circle Award]].
* 1997: ''[[The Seagull]]'' – a translation of  [[Anton Chekhov]]'s play, it was first performed at The Old Vic theatre in London on 28 April 1997
* 2002: ''[[The Coast of Utopia]]'' – a trilogy of plays: ''Voyage'', ''Shipwreck'', and ''Salvage''. The trilogy, nine hours in total, premiered with ''Voyage'' on 22 June 2002 at the National Theatre's Olivier auditorium in repertory. The openings of ''Shipwreck'' and ''Salvage'' followed on 8 and 19 July, completing ''The Coast of Utopia'''s run on 23 November 2002.
* 2004: ''[[Enrico IV]]'' (Henry IV) – a translation of the Italian play by [[Luigi Pirandello]],<ref>{{cite news |last=Bassett |first=Kate |date=9 May 2004 |title=Madness – it's just another act |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre/reviews/henry-iv-donmar-warehouse-londonbrgone-missing-gate-londonbrmad-bush-london-562854.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090207174343/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/henry-iv-donmar-warehouse-londonbrgone-missing-gate-londonbrmad-bush-london-562854.html |archive-date=7 February 2009 |access-date=7 September 2008 |work=[[The Independent]]}}</ref> it was first presented at the [[Donmar Warehouse|Donmar Theatre]], London, in April 2004.
* 2006: ''[[Rock 'n' Roll (play)|Rock 'n' Roll]]'' – first performed on 3 June 2006 at the [[Royal Court Theatre]]
* 2010: ''The Laws of War'' – a contribution to a collaborative piece for a one-night benefit performance in support of [[Human Rights Watch]]<ref>{{cite web |title=The Laws of War at The Royal Court Theatre |url=http://www.royalcourttheatre.com/whats-on/cries-from-the-heart-2010-presents-the-laws-of-war |access-date=24 September 2011 |work=Royal Court |publisher=[[Royal Court Theatre]]}}</ref>
* 2015: ''[[The Hard Problem]]''
* 2020: ''[[Leopoldstadt (play)|Leopoldstadt]]'' – first performed in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre in London,<ref name="Brown, Mark"/> it went on to win the [[Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play]].<ref name="Wolf">{{cite web |last=Wolf |first=Matt |date=26 October 2020 |title=2020 Olivier Awards: Better late than never as Dear Evan Hansen and Tom Stoppard win top awards |url=https://www.londontheatre.co.uk/theatre-news/west-end-features/2020-olivier-awards-better-late-than-never |access-date=2 October 2021 |website=London Theatre Guide}}</ref><ref name="broadway.com"/>

===Original works for radio===
* 1964: ''The Dissolution of Dominic Boot'' – written for a BBC series of 15-minute radio plays, ''Just before Midnight''<ref name="The Dog intro">{{Cite book |last=Stoppard |first=Tom |title=Introduction by Stoppard to The Dog It Was That Died and other plays |date=August 1983 |publisher=[[Faber and Faber]] |isbn=0-571-13183-2 |location=London |pages=7–8}}</ref>
* 1964: '''M' is for Moon Amongst Other ''– written for  a  BBC series of 15-minute radio plays, ''Just before Midnight''<ref name="The Dog intro"/>
* 1966: ''If You're Glad I'll be Frank''
* 1967: ''Albert's Bridge'' – first broadcast on the  [[BBC Third Programme]] on 13 July 1967<ref name="Albert">{{Cite book |last=Stoppard |first=Tom |title=Albert's Bridge |date=1970 |publisher=[[Faber and Faber]] |isbn=0-571-09471-6 |location=London |pages=5}}</ref>
* 1968: ''Where Are They Now?'' – commissioned for Schools Radio and first broadcast on 28 January 1970<ref name="Where">{{Cite book |last=Stoppard |first=Tom |title=Artist Descending a Staircase & Where Are They Now? |date=1973 |publisher=[[Faber and Faber]] |isbn=0-571-10394-4 |location=London |pages=57}}</ref>
* 1972: ''[[Artist Descending a Staircase]]''– first broadcast on [[BBC Radio 3]] on 14 November 1972<ref name="Artist">{{Cite book |last=Stoppard |first=Tom |title=Artist Descending a Staircase & Where Are They Now? |date=1973 |publisher=[[Faber and Faber]] |isbn=0-571-10394-4 |location=London |page=9}}</ref>
* 1982: ''[[The Dog It Was That Died]]'' – first broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4]]
* 1991: ''[[In the Native State]]'' – later expanded to become the stage play ''[[Indian Ink]]'' (1995)
* 2007: ''On Dover Beach''<ref>{{cite web |title=Alan Howard Reads |url=http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/a/al/alan_howard_reads.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128193845/http://www.radiolistings.co.uk/programmes/a/al/alan_howard_reads.html |archive-date=28 January 2013 |access-date=1 June 2011 |publisher=RadioListings.co.uk}}</ref>
* 2012: ''Albert's Bridge'', ''Artist Descending a Staircase'', ''The Dog It Was That Died'' and ''In the Native State'' were published by the [[British Library]] as ''Tom Stoppard Radio Plays''<ref>{{cite web |title=''Tom Stoppard Radio Plays'' |url=https://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2012/june/the-british-library-publishes-four-original-recordings-of-tom-stoppards-radio-plays-for-the-first-ti |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200810084601/https://www.bl.uk/press-releases/2012/june/the-british-library-publishes-four-original-recordings-of-tom-stoppards-radio-plays-for-the-first-ti |archive-date=10 August 2020 |access-date=1 August 2018 |publisher=British Library, press release, 25 June 2012}}</ref>
* 2013: ''[[Darkside (radio play)|Darkside]]'' – written for BBC Radio 2<ref name="DarkSide">{{cite web |date=16 April 2013 |title=Tom Stoppard's Dark Side comes to BBC Radio 2 |url=http://tuppencemagazine.co.uk/entertainment-news/sir-tom-stoppards-pink-floyd-inspired-dark-side-comes-bbc-radio-2/ |access-date=28 April 2013 |work=Tuppence Magazine}}</ref> to celebrate the 40th anniversary of [[Pink Floyd]]'s album ''[[Dark Side of the Moon]]''.<ref name="Coveney">{{Cite news |last=Coveney |first=Michael |date=30 November 2025 |title=Sir Tom Stoppard obituary |url=https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/nov/30/sir-tom-stoppard-obituary |access-date=2 December 2025 |work=[[The Guardian]]}}</ref>

===Television plays===
*  1965:''A Separate Peace'' – broadcast in August 1966{{sfn |Hodgson |2001 |p=41}} to accompany a documentary about chess players that Stoppard made with Christopher Martin<ref name="The Dog intro"/>
*  1966: ''Teeth''<ref name="The Dog intro"/>
*  1967: ''Another Moon Called Earth'' (containing some dialogue and situations later incorporated into ''[[Jumpers (play)|Jumpers]]'')<ref name="The Dog intro"/>
* 1968: ''Neutral Ground'' (a loose adaptation of [[Sophocles]]' ''[[Philoctetes (Sophocles play)|Philoctetes]]'')<ref name="The Dog intro"/>
* 1970: ''The Engagement'', a television version of ''The Dissolution of Dominic Boot'' on ''[[NBC Experiment in Television]]''{{sfn |Kelly |2001 |pp=78–80}}
* 1975: ''The Boundary'' – co-authored by [[Clive Exton]], for the BBC
* 1977: ''[[Professional Foul]]''
* 1984: ''[[Squaring_the_Circle_(1984_play)|Squaring the Circle]]''

===Film and television adaptation of plays and books===
* 1975: ''[[Three Men in a Boat (1975 film)|Three Men in a Boat]]'' – adaptation of [[Jerome K. Jerome]]'s novel for BBC Television
* 1978: ''[[Despair (film)|Despair]]'' – screenplay for the film directed by [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]], starring [[Dirk Bogarde]], based on the novel by [[Vladimir Nabokov]]
* 1979: ''[[The Human Factor (1979 film)|The Human Factor]]'' – a film adaption of the novel by [[Graham Greene]]
* 1985: ''[[Brazil (1985 film)|Brazil]]'' – co-authored with [[Terry Gilliam]] and [[Charles McKeown]], script nominated for an [[Academy Award]]
* 1987: ''[[Empire of the Sun (film)|Empire of the Sun]]'' – first draft of the screenplay<ref name="Meyers">{{cite journal |last1=Meyers |first1=Jeffrey |date=March 2012 |title=Baker, William, and Gerald N. Wachs. Tom Stoppard: A Bibliographical History. London: British Library; New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, 2010. xlviii, 446 pp. + CD-Rom of illus. Illus. Cloth, £50.00 or $79.95 |journal=The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America |volume=106 |issue=1 |pages=116–9 |doi=10.1086/680606}}</ref>
* 1989: ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]]'' – final rewrite of [[Jeffrey Boam]]'s rewrite of [[Menno Meyjes]]'s screenplay
* 1990: ''[[The Russia House (film)|The Russia House]]'' – screenplay for the 1990 film of the [[John le Carré]] novel
* 1990: ''[[Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (film)|Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead]]'' – won the [[Golden Lion]] and which he also directed
* 1998: ''[[Shakespeare in Love]]'' – co-authored with [[Marc Norman]]; the script won an [[Academy Award]]<ref name = "Meyers"/>
* 1998: ''[[Poodle Springs (film)|Poodle Springs]]'' – a teleplay adaptation of the novel by [[Robert B. Parker]] and [[Raymond Chandler]]<ref name="NYT">{{cite web |author=Stewart, Bhob |author-link=Bhob Stewart |date=2014 |title=Poodle Springs |url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/162868/Poodle-Springs/overview |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141018221610/http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/162868/Poodle-Springs/overview |archive-date=18 October 2014 |work=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref>
* 2001: ''[[Enigma (2001 film)|Enigma]]'' – film screenplay of the [[Robert Harris (novelist)|Robert Harris]] novel
* 2005: ''[[Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith]]'' – dialogue-polish of [[George Lucas]]'s screenplay
* 2005: ''[[The Golden Compass (film)|The Golden Compass]]'' – a draft screenplay, not produced
* 2012: ''[[Parade's End (TV series)|Parade's End]]'' – television screenplay for BBC/HBO of [[Ford Madox Ford]]'s [[Parade's End|series of novels]]<ref>{{cite news |title=Parade's End |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/parades-end |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100903002340/http://www.bbc.co.uk/tv/comingup/parades-end/ |archive-date=3 September 2010 |access-date=10 June 2011 |publisher=BBC}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Goldberg |first=Lesley |date=3 June 2011 |title=HBO Back in War Business With 'Parade's End' |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/hbo-back-war-business-parade-194753 |access-date=29 September 2011 |work=[[The Hollywood Reporter]]}}</ref>
* 2012: ''[[Anna Karenina (2012 film)|Anna Karenina]]'' –  film screenplay of the [[Leo Tolstoy]] novel
* 2014: ''[[Tulip Fever]]'' – film screenplay of the [[Deborah Moggach]] novel

==See also==
{{Portal|United Kingdom|Biography|Theatre}}
* [[List of Academy Award winners and nominees from Great Britain]]
* [[List of British playwrights since 1950]]
* [[List of Golden Globe winners]]
* [[List of Jewish Academy Award winners and nominees]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{cite book|last=Hodgson|first=Terry|title=The Plays of Tom Stoppard: For Stage, Radio, TV and Film |year=2001 |publisher=Icon|location=[[Duxford, England]]|isbn=1-84046-241-8}}
* {{cite book|editor-last=Kelly|editor-first=Katherine E.|title=The Cambridge Companion to Tom Stoppard |year=2001 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge |isbn=0-521-64592-1 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RWCYII2jrGgC}}

==Further reading==
* [[Bloom, Harold]], ed. ''Tom Stoppard''. Bloom's Major Dramatists series. New York: [[Chelsea House]], 2003, {{ISBN|0-7910-7032-8}}. a
* Cahn, Victor L. ''Beyond Absurdity: The Plays of Tom Stoppard''. Madison, N.J.: [[Fairleigh Dickinson University Press]], 1979.
* [[Dick Corballis|Corballis, Richard]]. ''Stoppard. The Mystery and the Clockwork''. Oxford, New York, 1984.
* Delaney, Paul. ''Tom Stoppard: The Moral Vision of the Plays''. London, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1990.
* Fleming, John. ''Stoppard's Theater: Finding Order Amid Chaos''. Austin: [[University of Texas Press]], 2001.
* Hayman, Ronald. ''Tom Stoppard''. Contemporary Playwrights series. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1977.
* Hunter, Jim. ''About Stoppard: The Playwright and the Work''. London: [[Faber and Faber]], 2005.
* {{cite magazine |last=Lane|first=Anthony |author-link= Anthony Lane|date=1 March 2021 |title=O lucky man! Tom Stoppard's charmed and haunted life |department=The Critics. Books |magazine=[[The New Yorker]] |volume=97 |issue=2 |pages=57–62 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/03/01/tom-stoppards-charmed-and-haunted-life <!--|access-date=2024-08-26-->}}
* [[Londré, Felicia Hardison]]. ''Tom Stoppard''. Modern Literature Series. New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1981.
* Purse, Nigel. ''Tom Stoppard's Plays. Patterns of Plenitude and Parsimony''. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
* Stoppard, Tom, & Delaney, Paul (eds). ''Tom Stoppard in Conversation''. [[University of Michigan Press]], 1994.
* Südkamp, Holger. ''Tom Stoppard's Biographical Drama''. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2008, {{ISBN|978-38682-1043-9}}.

==External links==
{{Sister project auto}}

* {{IMDb name}}
* {{Charlie Rose view|1541}}
* {{C-SPAN}}
* {{Discogs artist}}
* {{Internet Archive author|sname=Tom Stoppard}}
* [https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL4340559A/Tom_Stoppard Bibliography] at [[Open Library]]
* [http://www.sondheimguide.com/Stoppard/index.html A Tom Stoppard Bibliography] at The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide
* [http://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingaid.cfm?eadid=00179p1 Tom Stoppard Papers] and the [https://norman.hrc.utexas.edu/fasearch/findingAid.cfm?eadID=01301 Robert May Collection of Tom Stoppard] at the [[Harry Ransom Center]], [[University of Texas at Austin]]
<!-- * [https://web.archive.org/web/20160312024517/http://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b9f55767a Tom Stoppard] at the [[British Film Institute]]{{better source needed|reason=Help request: a live link can be searched for at https://collections-search.bfi.org.uk/web/search/expert – if available, replace the archive URL with the live link. Or if none found, remove this 'better source needed' template. | date=October 2023}} -->

===Interviews===
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110102090341/http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth254 British Council profile] Retrieved 9 May 2020.
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/ram/ajtstoppard.ram BBC] [[John Tusa]] Interview (Audio 43 mins). [https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/johntusainterview/stoppard_transcript.shtml With transcript]. [https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/cinema/features/tom-stoppard.shtml BBC profile]. Retrieved 2 January 2011.
* Guppy, Shusha (Winter 1988). [http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2467/the-art-of-theater-no-7-tom-stoppard "Tom Stoppard, The Art of Theater No. 7"]. ''[[Paris Review]]'' interview.
* [https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lfcbk Stoppard talking about his life] on [[BBC Radio 4]]'s ''[[Front Row (radio programme)|Front Row]]'' in April 2017

{{Tom Stoppard}}
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[[Category:Theatre of the Absurd]]
[[Category:Tony Award winners]]
[[Category:Writers from Bristol]]
[[Category:Writers from Zlín]]
[[Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners]]