The 32 Greatest Magicians of All Time

By YPB TeamOct 31

Vaudeville escape artists, Las Vegas showmen and close-up wizards who fool you inches away. A century after Houdini, who still owns the stage?

1
Harry Houdini
The legendary escape artist whose daring feats made his name a synonym for the impossible.
1000pts
2
Howard Thurston
Kellar's successor whose spectacular stage show was the largest of the golden age of magic.
782pts
3
David Copperfield
The most commercially successful magician ever, famed for vanishing the Statue of Liberty.
782pts
4
Penn & Teller
The loud-and-silent duo who reinvented Las Vegas magic by revealing and subverting its secrets.
657pts
5
Siegfried & Roy
The German-American duo whose white tigers made them Las Vegas icons for decades.
586pts
6
Doug Henning
The Canadian showman who revived magic as theatre with Broadway's The Magic Show.
586pts
7
Harry Kellar
America's dean of magic, whose grand touring illusion show dominated the late 1800s.
532pts
8
Bartolomeo Bosco
The Italian cups-and-balls virtuoso who was Europe's most famous conjuror in the early 1800s.
532pts
9
Horace Goldin
The illusionist who patented and popularised sawing a woman in half.
532pts
10
Mark Wilson
The pioneer of televised magic with the 1960s series The Magic Land of Allakazam.
532pts
11
Criss Angel
The illusionist behind Mindfreak, which made magic a hit reality-TV format.
469pts
12
Harry Blackstone Sr.
The Great Blackstone, famed for his floating light bulb and vanishing birdcage.
469pts
13
Adelaide Herrmann
The Queen of Magic, who ran her own illusion show for decades after her husband's death.
469pts
14
Shin Lim
The card magician who won both Penn & Teller: Fool Us and America's Got Talent.
469pts
15
Ricky Jay
The master card manipulator and scholar of magic history.
469pts
16
Dante
Harry August Jansen, whose touring revue Sim Sala Bim was one of the last great full-evening shows.
397pts
17
Fred Kaps
The Dutch master who remains the only three-time winner of the FISM Grand Prix.
397pts
18
Harry Anderson
The comic con-man magician and Night Court star who championed street-style magic.
397pts
19
Dai Vernon
The Professor, the most influential sleight-of-hand artist of the 20th century.
397pts
20
Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin
The French clockmaker widely called the father of modern conjuring.
397pts
21
Tommy Cooper
The fez-wearing comic magician whose tricks went hilariously wrong on purpose.
313pts
22
John Henry Anderson
The Great Wizard of the North, the Scottish showman who pioneered big-scale publicity for magic.
313pts
23
David Blaine
The street magician and endurance artist who brought close-up magic to television.
313pts
24
Lance Burton
The elegant Las Vegas headliner celebrated for his dove act and sleight of hand.
313pts
25
Joseph Dunninger
The Amazing Dunninger, America's most famous mentalist on radio and early TV.
313pts
26
Chung Ling Soo
The American illusionist who posed as a Chinese conjurer and died performing the bullet catch.
213pts
27
Derren Brown
The British mentalist whose psychological illusions redefined television magic.
213pts
28
Dynamo
The Bradford street magician whose show Magician Impossible became a global hit.
213pts
29
James Randi
The Amazing Randi, escape artist turned world-famous debunker of psychic fraud.
213pts
30
John Nevil Maskelyne
The English inventor-magician who ran London's Egyptian Hall, England's home of magic.
213pts
31
Paul Daniels
The British TV magician whose Paul Daniels Magic Show ran for 15 years.
213pts
32
Alexander Herrmann
Herrmann the Great, the devilish-looking star of 19th-century stage magic.
0pts