Lego building is now as ubiquitous a leisure activity for adults as doing puzzles, and it’s one that allows for both meditative calm and creative bursts of energy.
If it’s been a minute (or decades) since you last built Lego sets yourself, here’s a preview of what you can expect from several popular sets that have a suggested age rating of 18 and up.
Why you should trust us
I’m a senior staff writer at Wirecutter covering home and decor. Since 2020, I’ve also written about all things Lego, including our guide to the best Lego sets for kids, a guide to Lego Botanical Collection sets, a deep dive into the world of AFOLs (Adult Fans of Lego), and a guide about how to clean grimy Lego pieces.
- I’ve built countless Lego sets over the course of my life. The first one I can recall from childhood was Lego Lion Knights King’s Castle 6080 in 1984. I picked up my first Lego set as an adult in 1999, and I began collecting in earnest around 2012.
- Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.
How we picked and tested
When it comes to Lego sets for adults, one person’s dream build can be another person’s meh experience, promptly followed by buyer’s remorse. Due to Lego’s breadth of themes, a ranking of the best sets can really exist only within one’s personal collection.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll find a hodgepodge of arbitrary picks here. In evaluating sets and assembling this list, I paid close attention to engagement with each build. Does the process become repetitive? Are familiar pieces used in new and interesting ways? Is the end result impressive enough to keep on display?
Personal preference still plays a role with many of the picks here. But I’m lucky to have a Slack channel full of fellow AFOL (Adult Fans of Lego) co-workers with different perspectives and opinions, and many of them have also built sets that we’ve included here in our final list.
If you’re buying a Lego gift for another adult, you shouldn’t feel like you always have to take the 18+ suggestion under consideration. Much like when you buy a Lego set for a child, when you buy for an adult, it’s more important to keep their specific interests in mind than to simply observe a number on the box—unless that number is the price tag. Costs keep creeping ever higher, so do keep an eye on that.
Fine tuning: Retro Radio 10344
This vintage-inspired transistor radio plays 12 different audio clips, thanks to an internal Lego Sound Brick. A cell-phone-sized slot inside also lets you hide your phone and play music from within.
Described as a replica of a 1970s transistor radio, the Lego Retro Radio 10344 has a late mid-century modern flair, thanks to its pale green casing and faux-wood paneling—details that caught the eye of Erik Erickson, Wirecutter’s director of platform engineering.
“We live in a mid-century home and have tried to decorate it keeping with its age,” Erik said. “I thought this set would look neat on a shelf, and maybe my wife would be okay with me keeping it in the living room instead of my Lego display cabinet.”
Erik, who loved Lego building as a child and began building as an adult in 2017, found the set deeply satisfying. “The Lego designer took what could have been a boring and repetitive build and organized the instructions to make things interesting. You start with the internal mechanics, and it’s not clear how it’s all going to work. Eventually, I started to see how one element toggles another, which affects another, and so on. It was a wonderful mystery to unfold.” He appreciated that the tuning dial, with station numbers, is made up of printed tiles, rather than stickers.
The Retro Radio even works, sort of. Turning the dial activates one of 12 audio clips in a Lego Sound Brick (a building element that looks like a Lego brick but plays sounds); the clips include a surf-rock rendition of “Everything Is Awesome” from The Lego Movie. And inside the radio, there’s room to place a cell phone against the speaker’s grille, so you can play anything you want using your phone’s speaker.
Erik ended up getting his wife’s permission to display the set in their living room, and it has become an interactive experience for the whole family. “Everyone’s turning the knob once a day to see what sound clip they get,” he said.
Number of pieces: 906
Builder tip: Erik says to be sure to count the layers as you work. “This set is made up of many flat tiles, and it’s easy to miss a critical layer. I had to disassemble a good chunk of it once I got to the last bag because I had missed a single 1×4 that was critical to the whole structure.”
He also said to note that the on/off switch purposefully makes it so the tuning knob can’t move across the whole dial. “It’s a feature, not a bug.”
Suitable for newbies: Tuxedo Cat 21349
For cat and brick enthusiasts alike, this dapper kitty comes with customizable eyes and different poses for its mouth and tail.
Buying Options
I asked supervising editor Daniela Gorny to build the Lego Tuxedo Cat 21349 because my orbit is full of adults who are very into Lego, and she hadn’t touched any bricks since she was a kid. I wanted a new perspective. While the experience didn’t transform her to a full-blown AFOL, she did gain an enthusiastic new appreciation for the brand.
“I built the cat over four nights,” she said. “There were 20 pouches total, and I worked on five at a time. It didn’t feel repetitive, and it was very cool to see it all come together, especially the movable parts. The head turns, the paws and ears are adjustable, and the tip of the tail swings slightly.”
Based on her happy childhood experiences playing with Lego, Daniela initially worried that the Tuxedo Cat wouldn’t feel enough like what she considered “traditional” Lego, which she remembered as sets with lots of little rectangular bricks or open-ended kits that encouraged your own creations (she credits Lego for her decision to study architecture). “But they really kept the larger and curved pieces to a minimum,” she said. “Mostly just for the outside finishing elements. Everything on the inside felt very brickish and true to my nice nostalgic memories of building Lego.”
You can swap the cat’s eye colors between blue and yellow or go for a dual look and name it Bowie. “You can also swap mouth pieces between a slightly open pose and closed,” Daniela said. “Right now I have it displayed on a shelf in my dining room. I’m definitely inspired now to look at more Lego sets for adults.”
Number of pieces: 1,710
Builder tip: As a newbie, Daniela didn’t realize at first that each bag usually contains a few extras of the smallest pieces, in case any wind up in the carpet. If it’s your first rodeo as well, don’t panic—you didn’t miss anything if a few leftovers remain when the bag is finished. Note too that because the Tuxedo Cat’s body is made up of smooth, sloped curves, the shiny black surfaces pick up every bit of oil on your fingertips while you’re building; Daniela suggests giving the cat a gentle wipe with a microfiber cloth before displaying it.