Every Star Wars movie ranked, from worst to best (all 13 films)

Updated Sep 28, 2026: Now includes The Mandalorian and Grogu, with box office and streaming re-checked. We’ll re-rank when Star Wars: Starfighter opens in May 2027.

Thirteen movies. Fifty years. One very old argument. Here are all the Star Wars movies ranked, worst to best, from the 1977 original to this year’s The Mandalorian and Grogu. Short version: the animated Clone Wars pilot is last, and The Empire Strikes Back is still No. 1. Nobody’s surprised. Everything in between gets a reason, and there’s a quick table first if you just want the list.

Quick note: the ranking is our opinion. The numbers are not. Every figure below links to where we got it.

Star Wars movies ranked at a glance

Worldwide grosses are from The Numbers as of Sep 2026, and include re-releases.

The full ranking, from worst to best

13. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008)

This was never really meant to be a movie. It’s the first few episodes of an animated TV show stitched together and sent to theaters, and it shows. The plot is a mission-of-the-week about rescuing Jabba the Hutt’s baby son. The early animation is stiff. And Ahsoka Tano, the new Padawan, hasn’t grown into herself yet. It made just $68.7 million worldwide, easily the franchise low.

The funny part? It matters a lot now. The series it launched became some of the best Star Wars of the last 20 years, and Ahsoka went on to lead her own live-action show. Watch the series. Skip the pilot movie.

12. The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

A movie so busy course-correcting that it forgets to be about anything. It has to close a nine-film saga, walk back chunks of the previous film, and bring back a villain the trilogy never set up. All at a sprint. Scenes end before they land. Characters pick up new backstories between cuts.

There’s good stuff buried in there. Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley still crackle together, and the final shot is a nice callback. But it’s the only Star Wars film that feels scared of its own audience. That’s why it’s this low.

11. Attack of the Clones (2002)

The romance is the problem. It’s a big problem, because the whole prequel trilogy hangs on it. Anakin and Padmé’s scenes are famously awkward, and the movie spends way too long in meadows and dining rooms when it should be building the political thriller underneath.

Some of it works, though. Obi-Wan’s detective subplot on Kamino is honestly fun. The arena battle is the first time we see the Jedi fight as an army. And Yoda’s lightsaber duel was a real “wait, he can do that?” moment in 2002. It’s a better trailer than it is a movie.

10. The Mandalorian and Grogu (2026)

Heads-up: this spot is based on how the movie landed with critics, audiences and the box office, not on a SuperBroMovies review. Here’s what the numbers say.

The first Star Wars movie since 2019 was supposed to prove the TV era could scale back up to theaters. It didn’t, at least not at the box office. It opened to a series-low $98 million in the US over the four-day Memorial Day weekend and finished at $345.8 million worldwide. That’s below Solo, and the lowest total for any live-action Star Wars film.

Critics were mixed, not hostile. It sits at 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus calls it “bountiful in action but threadbare in narrative thrust,” and at 53 on Metacritic. Audiences liked it more: an A– CinemaScore and an 86% Popcornmeter on Rotten Tomatoes. So the reported story is fun action and a charming central duo, stretched over an episodic plot. That’s why it lands here: above Attack of the Clones, which has bigger structural problems, and below The Phantom Menace, which at least swings huge.

9. The Phantom Menace (1999)

Yes, the trade dispute. Yes, Jar Jar. The Phantom Menace has a lot of dead air and a kid lead the script doesn’t serve. But it’s also the most visually ambitious film George Lucas ever made. Naboo’s waterfalls, Coruscant at dusk, the underwater Gungan city: nothing else in the saga looks like this.

And the last half hour earns its rep. The podrace is a great set piece. “Duel of the Fates” plus Darth Maul’s double-bladed lightsaber turned a so-so movie into one kids still act out in the backyard. It’s lopsided. It’s never timid.

8. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Nobody asked how Han Solo got his last name, and the movie spends a weird amount of time answering questions like that. It also had one of the roughest productions in the franchise: the original directors were let go mid-shoot and Ron Howard took over. At $393.2 million worldwide, it was the lowest-grossing live-action Star Wars film until this year.

Watch it now without the baggage, though, and it’s a breezy heist movie. The train robbery rules. Donald Glover’s Lando nearly steals the whole thing. Alden Ehrenreich smartly plays Han as a kid who hasn’t gone cynical yet. It’s minor, but it’s fun, and fun counts.

7. Revenge of the Sith (2005)

The best prequel, because it finally delivers what the trilogy promised: the fall of the Republic and the fall of Anakin, told as a tragedy. The Order 66 sequence is the darkest stretch in any Star Wars movie. Ian McDiarmid’s Palpatine is clearly having the time of his life.

The dialogue is still clunky, and Anakin turns a beat too fast. But the Mustafar duel and John Williams’ score over the ending give it real weight. It’s also the prequel a whole generation defends the loudest, and honestly, fair.

6. The Force Awakens (2015)

J.J. Abrams had one job: make Star Wars feel like Star Wars again after a decade away. He did it. Rey, Finn, Poe and BB-8 showed up fully formed and instantly likable, and Harrison Ford’s return is handled with real love. It’s still the franchise’s biggest box-office hit at $2.06 billion.

The knock is obvious. It borrows the 1977 film’s structure almost beat for beat, down to another planet-killing superweapon. It’s a very good cover song. The five films above it are originals.

5. Return of the Jedi (1983)

The Ewok stretch drags, and the second Death Star is a rerun. Everything else is terrific. The Jabba’s palace opening is a mini-movie on its own. The speeder bike chase still looks great. And the throne-room showdown between Luke, Vader and the Emperor is the emotional payoff the whole original trilogy was building to.

It’s that rare franchise finale that actually ends the story it started. That alone puts it ahead of every sequel-trilogy movie on this list but one.

4. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)

The best spinoff by a mile, and the only one that fully justified itself. Rogue One takes one line from the 1977 opening crawl (rebel spies steal the Death Star plans) and turns it into a war movie about regular people who don’t get a sequel. It looks grittier than any other Star Wars film, and its new characters make an impression fast.

The first act is choppy, and the film went through well-documented reshoots. But the Scarif battle is the best large-scale action in the franchise, and the last 10 minutes hand the baton to A New Hope so neatly that the two play as one long story. Andor exists because this worked.

3. The Last Jedi (2017)

Okay, this is the one we expect to fight about. The Last Jedi is the most divisive Star Wars film ever, and we think it’s also the most interesting one since 1980. Rian Johnson takes the franchise’s big myths (chosen bloodlines, heroic Jedi masters, destiny) and asks what they’re actually worth. Luke’s arc is a bold, sad and finally beautiful answer.

Canto Bight is the weak spot. It’s also fair to say this film made the sequel trilogy harder to finish. But the throne-room fight, the hyperspace ram and the red salt of Crait are some of the most striking images in the whole saga. It took a risk. Star Wars is better when it takes risks.

2. Star Wars (1977)

The one that started it all, and it still plays. It’s a simple story told with total confidence: a farm boy, a princess, a smuggler, an old wizard and a space station that needs blowing up. Lucas pulled from Westerns, samurai films and old serials and made something that felt brand new. The modern blockbuster basically starts here.

Never seen it on a big screen? You’re about to get the chance. Lucasfilm is bringing back a newly restored version of the 1977 theatrical release on Feb 19, 2027, and it’ll play in IMAX for the first time, including select IMAX 70mm theaters.

1. The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

No surprise. But there’s a reason it keeps landing here. Empire takes the heroes from the first film and makes them lose. The Rebels get routed on Hoth. Han gets frozen. Luke’s training gets cut short, and his big duel ends with the worst family news in movie history. It’s darker, funnier and more romantic than the original, often in the same scene.

Irvin Kershner gives it a patience the other films rarely have. Scenes breathe. The Han-and-Leia banter has actual chemistry. And Yoda turns what could have been a puppet gag into the soul of the saga. Every Star Wars movie since gets measured against it. None has beaten it. No notes.

What the ranking says about Star Wars movies

Line all 13 up and a pattern jumps out. The films at the top have a clear point of view. Empire commits to a downbeat middle chapter. The Last Jedi commits to questioning the myth. Rogue One commits to being a war movie. The films at the bottom were built to do a job for the brand: fix a previous film, launch a TV show, or prove a streaming character can sell tickets.

That’s why the next one is interesting. Shawn Levy’s Starfighter stars Ryan Gosling as a brand-new character, Kade Auberon. After a decade of sequels to sequels, a Star Wars film with a fresh lead is exactly what we’d have asked for.

Let’s be real: Star Wars on the big screen has been a mess

We love this franchise. That’s why the last few years have been frustrating.

• A seven-year gap, and then a stumble. After The Rise of Skywalker in December 2019, there wasn’t another Star Wars movie until May 2026. When one finally showed up, it posted the lowest worldwide gross of any live-action entry. The two worst live-action totals in the franchise now both belong to spinoffs, Solo and The Mandalorian and Grogu.
• “Just make a longer episode” isn’t a movie plan. Rotten Tomatoes’ critics’ consensus for The Mandalorian and Grogu literally flags its “episodic structure.” That’s the risk of turning a hit TV show into a feature, and critics called it out.
• The version you actually want isn’t on Disney+. The Star Wars on Disney+ is the reworked version. At D23 on Aug 14, 2026, Lucasfilm’s Dave Filoni said the Feb 19 re-release is the original theatrical cut, not the 1997 Special Edition or any later version, including the 2019 Disney+ one, per Men’s Journal. Great news. But as of Sep 28, 2026, we haven’t seen Lucasfilm say whether that cut will ever stream. A limited theatrical run shouldn’t be the only way to see the movie that started it all.
• Big plans, no dates. On Sep 26, TheWrap and The Hollywood Reporter reported that Jon Watts will direct the first film in Simon Kinberg’s new trilogy. Lucasfilm declined to comment to TheWrap, and there’s no release date. After Starfighter, the film calendar is officially blank.

To be fair, there’s real good news. Starfighter is shot with IMAX-certified film cameras and opens on the original’s 50th anniversary weekend. And the original cut is coming back to theaters, which fans have wanted for decades. The saga isn’t broken. It just needs more movies with something to say.

Where to watch every Star Wars movie, and what’s next

• Streaming: All 13 films stream on Disney+ in the US as of Sep 28, 2026. The Star Wars hub on Disney+ lists all nine Skywalker saga films plus Rogue One, Solo and The Mandalorian and Grogu, and JustWatch shows The Clone Wars (2008) there too. The Mandalorian and Grogu joined on Sep 2, 2026.
• In theaters: Star Wars (1977) returns for a limited 50th-anniversary run on Feb 19, 2027, in IMAX for the first time. Lucasfilm’s own announcement calls it a “newly restored version” of the 1977 theatrical release. It doesn’t spell out “no Special Edition changes,” but Filoni said at D23 that it’s the original theatrical version.
• Next new movie: Star Wars: Starfighter, directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ryan Gosling, opens May 28, 2027, the 50th anniversary weekend of the original’s premiere. We’ll slot it into this list once it’s out.

Here’s the official trailer for the newest entry on the list:

Working through another big franchise? Our guides to every Godzilla movie in order and the Hunger Games movies in order have you covered, and our Marvel watch order is ready for Avengers: Doomsday.

So, be honest: is The Last Jedi at No. 3 a crime, or are we finally right about something? Tell us your top three in the comments.