diff --git a/news/2 Fixes/5414.md b/news/2 Fixes/5414.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..ed77d22707b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/news/2 Fixes/5414.md	
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fix sorting of lists.
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameInfo.py b/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameInfo.py
index 5533e3e94a1b..9a83ec6679e6 100644
--- a/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameInfo.py
+++ b/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameInfo.py
@@ -23,8 +23,9 @@
     _VSCODE_columnTypes = []
     _VSCODE_columnNames = []
     if _VSCODE_targetVariable['type'] == 'list':
-        _VSCODE_columnTypes = ['string'] # Might be able to be more specific here?
-        _VSCODE_columnNames = ['_VSCode_JupyterValuesColumn']
+        _VSCODE_evalResult = _VSCODE_pd.DataFrame(_VSCODE_evalResult)
+        _VSCODE_columnTypes = list(_VSCODE_evalResult.dtypes)
+        _VSCODE_columnNames = list(_VSCODE_evalResult)
     elif _VSCODE_targetVariable['type'] == 'Series':
         _VSCODE_evalResult = _VSCODE_pd.Series.to_frame(_VSCODE_evalResult)
         _VSCODE_columnTypes = list(_VSCODE_evalResult.dtypes)
diff --git a/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameRows.py b/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameRows.py
index ef4cc5402ea1..74fa6974f1c1 100644
--- a/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameRows.py
+++ b/pythonFiles/datascience/getJupyterVariableDataFrameRows.py
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 # Assume we have a dataframe. If not, turn our eval result into a dataframe
 _VSCODE_df = _VSCODE_evalResult
 if (_VSCODE_targetVariable['type'] == 'list'):
-    _VSCODE_df = _VSCODE_pd.DataFrame({'_VSCode_JupyterValuesColumn':_VSCODE_evalResult})
+    _VSCODE_df = _VSCODE_pd.DataFrame(_VSCODE_evalResult)
 elif (_VSCODE_targetVariable['type'] == 'Series'):
     _VSCODE_df = _VSCODE_pd.Series.to_frame(_VSCODE_evalResult)
 elif _VSCODE_targetVariable['type'] == 'dict':
diff --git a/src/datascience-ui/data-explorer/mainPanel.tsx b/src/datascience-ui/data-explorer/mainPanel.tsx
index ab8a84a8611b..e6f81a1d1a82 100644
--- a/src/datascience-ui/data-explorer/mainPanel.tsx
+++ b/src/datascience-ui/data-explorer/mainPanel.tsx
@@ -366,8 +366,8 @@ export class MainPanel extends React.Component<IMainPanelProps, IMainPanelState>
         // or it will take too long
         const comparer = isStringColumn ?
             (a: any, b: any): number => {
-                const aVal = a[sortColumn] as string;
-                const bVal = b[sortColumn] as string;
+                const aVal = a[sortColumn].toString();
+                const bVal = b[sortColumn].toString();
                 const aStr = aVal ? aVal.substring(0, Math.min(aVal.length, MaxStringCompare)) : aVal;
                 const bStr = bVal ? bVal.substring(0, Math.min(bVal.length, MaxStringCompare)) : bVal;
                 const result = aStr > bStr ? -1 : 1;