Don Quixote is a ballet in three acts, based on episodes taken from the famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus and first presented by Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet on 26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1869. Petipa and Minkus revised the ballet into a more elaborate and expansive version in five acts and eleven scenes for the Mariinsky Ballet, first presented on 21 November [O.S. 9 November] 1871 at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre of St. Petersburg.

All modern productions of the Petipa/Minkus ballet are derived from the version staged by Alexander Gorsky for the Bolshoi Theatre of Moscow in 1900, a production the ballet master staged for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg in 1902.

The two chapters of the novel that the ballet is mostly based on were first adapted for the ballet in 1740 by Franz Hilverding in Vienna, Austria. In 1768, Jean Georges Noverre mounted a new version of Don Quixote in Vienna to the music of Josef Starzer, a production that appears to have been a revival of the original by Hilverding.

Charles Didelot, known today as the "father of Russian Ballet", staged a two-act version of Don Quixote in St. Petersburg for the Imperial Ballet in 1808. In 1809, a version of the work was mounted at Her Majesty's Theatre by James Harvey D'Egville. Paul Taglioni (brother of Marie Taglioni) presented his own version of Don Quixote for the Berlin Court Opera Ballet in 1839, and his uncle, Salvatore Taglioni, set a production at the Teatro Regio in Turin, Italy in 1843.

The most famous and enduring ballet adaptation was created by the choreographer Marius Petipa, unrivaled Maître de Ballet of the Tsar's Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, and the composer Ludwig Minkus. By special commission, Petipa mounted the work for the Ballet of the Imperial Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. The production premiered on 26 December [O.S. 14 December] 1869 to great success.

Petipa then restaged the ballet in a far more opulent and grandiose production for the St. Petersburg Imperial Ballet on 21 November [O.S. 9 November] 1871. This new production consisted of five acts: eleven episodes, a prologue, and an epilogue; and used the same designs as the first production.

Alexander Gorsky presented his revival of the ballet for the Ballet of the Moscow Imperial Bolshoi Theatre on 19 December [O.S. 6 December] 1900, a production that he then staged for the Imperial Ballet of St. Petersburg, premiering on 2 February [O.S. 20 January] 1902.

For his productions of 1900 and 1902 Gorsky added new dances to music by Anton Simon – a variation for the Queen of the Dryads, and a dance for her mistresses, as well as an additional Spanish dance for the last scene. When he staged the production in St. Petersburg in 1902, the ballerina Mathilde Kschessinskaya, who danced Kitri/Dulcinea added the famous Variation of Kitri with the fan for the ballet's final pas de deux, and the Variation of Kitri as Dulcinea for the scene of Don Quixote's dream.