May the Force Be With You: Ranking All 11 Live-Action Star Wars Films

In what feels like a long time ago, in our own galaxy not far, far away, a young boy was walking around his local Blockbuster video with his father, searching for something to watch that weekend. The year was 1997, he was five years old, and as he stumbles around, aisle to aisle, dazzled by the endless selections at his fingertips, he can’t help but pick up something that he’s seen over a dozen times at this point in his life, begging his Dad to let him rent it one more time. That film was George Lucas’s classic Star Wars, a film that, since its release in the summer of 1977, has delivered the most famous franchise in movie history to audiences around the world; the ultimate cinematic escape that has been passed down to generations of moviegoers.

Throughout its nearly 50-year history, the Star Wars franchise has given us all countless memories that we will never be able to forget, from the unforgettable characters we idolize, the unique locations that take us to places we’ve never dreamed of before, the expansive mythology of the Jedi and the Sith, and technical advances that changed the future of blockbuster filmmaking. But just because it has all of these good qualities going for it, Star Wars is far from a perfect product, with head-scratching storylines, questionable new characters from the prequel trilogy, and behind-the-scenes drama on almost every project since Disney took over the franchise. Wrap this all up within the original toxic fan base, and you have a franchise stuck at a bit of a crossroads, where it has mostly become an intellectual property operating in a world of television shows (The Mandalorian, Andor, etc.).

But as we roll into Star Wars Day (May the Fourth Be with You, who doesn’t like a dumb pun?), and with nine live-action films announced over the last five years and none of them in significant production, the eleven films below represent the entirety of the big screen, live-action presence that audiences have come to love, hate, discuss and debate ad nauseam for nearly the last five decades. Why all the passion, you ask? Well, it is simple: Star Wars has, is, and always will be a fascinating symbol in our culture that brings back nostalgic feelings of a time in our life when we can look to the horizon and hope for better circumstances than the ones we currently live in.

In doing the rewatches for this list, I thought back to that little boy clinging to that VHS tape as he walked up to the counter with gleeful anticipation of getting home and being able to watch Star Wars as many times as he could before his parents had to return it to the store to avoid the late fees. A rush of memories like that flooded my brain as I plunged into the 1 day, 1 hour, and 18 minutes of Star Wars content for this ranking, and there were a lot of laughs, questions about if certain things made any damn sense, and tons of tears. Star Wars has been an important, surprisingly emotional part of my movie-going life for as long as I can remember, and here is my definitive ranking of the live-action films (because, let’s be honest, The Clone Wars movie sucks) of this complex franchise that I hold near and dear to my heart.

11. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

When I was a young boy on the playground at school, there was nothing I wanted to do more than imagine that I was flying around in the Millennium Falcon, going on as many quests and adventures before recess was up. The idea of being a younger Han Solo, hanging out with Chewbacca, and racing around the galaxy years before the events of A New Hope might sound good on paper and to a younger version of myself, but what Solo: A Star Wars Story proves is that not all ideas, no matter how well intended they might be, should exist. In this uninspired, unnecessary prequel, we follow Han (played by the talented, innocent Alden Ehrenreich) as he goes from orphan to infantryman for the Imperial Navy to the smuggler we’ve all come to love. Along the way, he meets his best buddy Chewbacca, encounters some bad guys (a wasted Paul Bettany as crime boss Dryden Vos), joins forces with Landon Calrissian and his droid companion L3-37 (played respectfully by Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge), performs the legendary Kessel Run he is known for, and tries to save his childhood sweetheart Qi’ra (Emilia Clark) from the clutches of Vos and his gangster operation.

Originally, the film was supposed to be directed by directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who were riding high on the success of 21 Jump Street and The Lego Movie and were looking to bring their comedic energy to the Star Wars franchise. Though they seemed to be perfect candidates to take on a Han Solo movie, six months into shooting, the duo left the project citing “creative differences” with LucasFilm executives, and director Ron Howard was brought in to save the project. With extensive rewrites, replacing actors, and, worst of all, losing every ounce of fun in the final product, Solo turned into one of the most expensive films of all time (somewhere in the ballpark of $275 million) that transformed into a giant mistake. Every action sequence, shot by cinematographer Bradford Young, is so dark that you can’t tell what the hell is going on from scene to scene, leaving the viewer uninterested in what will happen next to our young hero. Ehrenreich and the rest of the cast do the best they can to save this film, but everything about this movie just feels like a waste of time. The best way to describe the overall feeling of watching Solo: A Star Wars Story can be summed up from a line of dialogue spoken by Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, “what a piece of junk!”

10. Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019)

By the time The Rise of Skywalker’s first trailer was even released, you could sense something disturbing in the force, as the fandom had become completely divided based on the results of The Last Jedi (more on that a little bit later). If you also factor in the firing of writer-director Colin Trevorrow after the release of his calamity that was The Book of Henry, and the tragic passing of actress Carrie Fisher, who was set up to have a major part in this final film of the new trilogy from the Disney-led Lucas Films, The Rise of Skywalker became the embodiment of one of the franchise’s most memorable quotes; “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.” With Disney executives and producers fixated on releasing the film on time in the winter of 2019 and their backs up against the wall after Rian Johnson passed on the opportunity to close out the trilogy, they went back to The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, who re-wrote the script with Oscar-winning screenwriter Chris Terri. What they turned in, however, was a disappointing, forced, uninspired conclusion to the Skywalker Saga.

Picking up not too long after the events of The Last Jedi, Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega), Poe (Oscar Isaac), and the Resistance strap in for one more final battle against Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and the First Order to see who will rule the galaxy. But while the two armies are facing off, Rey and Kylo must come to terms with their connection in the force as a resurrected Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) joins the fold, revealing Rey’s connection to him and becoming a massive threat to the remaining Jedi, as she tries her best from letting him destroy the light side once and for all. Maybe you are thinking to yourself, “That doesn’t sound that bad,” and if you are, then you were like me on opening night in 2019 as I watched the last chapter of this beloved series with my Dad, the person responsible for introducing me to all of these films. But when I went back to see it again a few days later, I realized that I had been blinded by a nostalgia-laced script, side missions, and new characters that didn’t amount to anything, the retconning of all the good ideas and character developments from The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, and one of the most bizarre endings I’ve seen in a modern-day blockbuster. That last part is really what tears down the film because of the rather foolish inclusion of Palpatine, who is forced back into a narrative that never needed him in the first place and brings down all the momentum of what feels like wasted efforts put forth by Ridley and Driver, who consistently gave great performances throughout a franchise at odds with itself by the end of their tenure. The Rise of Skywalker is the only final entry of a Star Wars trilogy to end on a dud.

9. Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002)

Nothing will get a ten-year-old more excited in the summer of 2002 than seeing a new Star Wars movie, unless that film is Attack of the Clones. As a naïve young moviegoer, I, and many other loyal, patient Star Wars fans, sat through what felt like a lifetime of confusing political jargon mixed in with one of the most vanilla romantic storylines ever assembled for the big screen. Picking up a decade after the events of The Phantom Menace, the Galactic Republic is on the verge of going to war as planetary systems have started to secede to form the Confederacy of Independent Systems (a bit on the nose even for Lucas’s standards), led by former Jedi Master Count Dooku (a marvelous Christopher Lee rocking the hell out of a cape and red lightsaber). With this political unrest going on throughout the capital, Senator Padmé Amidala’s (Natalie Portman) life is at risk when two separate attempts to assassinate her send shockwaves through the Republic. Appointed by Supreme Chancellor Palpatine, old friends Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and his apprentice Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen) set out to protect Padmé at all costs. Under their watch, Obi-Wan sets out on a mission to find out who would want her killed, leading him to find a clone army ready to be dispatched if the Republic were to go into an all-out war. As for Anakin, while caring for Padmé, they both develop feelings for one another and fall in love, which is forbidden when one takes their vow to become a Jedi (aka space priest).

As interesting as this summation is above, it is the cliff notes version of a Star Wars film that feels like the equivalent of watching paint dry on a wall. The central core of the film is in the hands of Christensen and Portman, whose chemistry is nonexistent throughout the film’s runtime, with dialogue that is some of the most on-the-nose, cringe-inducing lines written in the entire series (“I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.” or “I will not let you give up your future for me.” or “We’d be living a lie. One we couldn’t keep, even if we wanted to. I couldn’t do that. Could you, Anakin? Could you live like that?” or “I’m not afraid to die. I’ve been dying a little bit each day since you came back into my life.” just to name a few). The saving grace of Attack of the Clones is the final thirty minutes of the film, where, for the first time in the series’ long history, we see the full power of the various Jedi knights come together to fight in an arena battle led none other by Master Mace Windu (the legendary Samuel L. Jackson wielding a badass purple lightsaber). Christensen gets a lot of blame for why this movie doesn’t succeed, and while he isn’t very good in this role, the biggest flaw in Attack of the Clones lies in Lucas’s script, thus making it the weakest film of the prequel trilogy.

8. Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999)

It’s been twenty-five years since we saw one of the greatest marketing campaigns of all time set up the return of Hollywood’s biggest franchise. Beyond the epic trailer showcasing an all-new Star Wars film from director George Lucas, The Phantom Menace easily had one of the best posters ever made, with a young Anakin Skywalker (Jake Lloyd) walking right outside his home on Tatooine. The reflection of his shadow off the side of the hut didn’t showcase a young boy but rather the villainous monster he would become, Darth Vader. Anticipation was at an all-time high for every fan, including myself, to see what Lucas had up his sleeve and how he would follow up one of the greatest trilogies ever. What audiences got was a remarkably mixed bag of results, but it didn’t stop them from going back to the theaters multiple times throughout the summer of 1999 to see if what they originally saw was now part of the Star Wars they’d grown to love.

Set thirty-two years (such a random number) before the events of the original trilogy, during the era of the Galactic Republic, the film follows Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson) and his apprentice Obi-Wan Kenobi (McGregor) as they try to protect Queen Padmé Amidala (Portman) of Naboo in hopes of securing a peaceful end to an interplanetary trade dispute with Viceroy Nute Gunray and the Trade Federation. Amid the Jedi’s journey, they are accompanied by the clumsy Gungan Jar Jar Binks (Ahmed Best) and the young Skywalker, whom Qui-Gon believes to be the chosen one that will complete an age-old Jedi prophecy and bring balance to the force. For every good thing Lucas includes in this film (the pod-racing sequence, John William’s mind-blowing score, the technical advances, an excellent new Sith villain in Darth Maul), he includes something that is just inexcusably bad (ongoing dialogue about trade discussions, racially stereotypical characters throughout the film, the over-reliance of Jar Jar Binks as a dull comic relief, Jake Lloyd’s lackluster performance). Yet, I’ve got a little bit of a soft spot for Phantom Menace as I fondly remember dragging as many adults as I could to see it with me as many times as I could in 1999, foolishly thinking this was going to be my only chance to see a new Star Wars movie on the big screen. What ultimately separates The Phantom Menace from Attack of the Clones is that the former is just a better-paced, more entertaining film than the latter, with so many interesting, head-scratching decisions that you can’t take your eyes off of it. 

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

Okay, we can start talking about the good Star Wars movies now. Remember just a couple of paragraphs ago when we were talking about Solo and how it was something that could be considered a good idea but wasn’t executed correctly? The prequel that came before it, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, faced nearly just as many production issues as Solo, as director Gareth Edwards was asked to step aside while writer Tony Gilroy came in and rewrote and directed key scenes including the film’s ending, alongside Chris Weitz, Christopher McQuarrie, Scott Z. Burns, and Michael Arndt coming in at some point and giving input on the script one way or another. Yet with all of that meddling behind the scenes, Rogue One still manages to be one hell of an action spectacle, one I saw three times the opening weekend it came out in the winter of 2016 and still has me on the edge of my seat for the final hour of the film’s runtime.

Set a week before the events of A New Hope, we follow a rag-tag bunch of Rebels who come together to steal plans of the Death Star, the ultimate weapon of the Galactic Empire. Led by Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), whose father created the moon-shaped weapon, and Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), a shady Rebel captain, the film excels beyond most expectations because of its exceptional visual style at the hands of Oscar-winning cinematographer Greig Fraser (Dune), as well as establishing a real connection with each of the characters created within the film, giving each of them several moments to shine throughout, particularly at the end when you slowly are self-reminded that these characters have to give their life so the spark of hope for the Rebellion can live on in the original trilogy. I cry every time I see Donnie Yen’s Chirrut Îmwe walking through oncoming blasters chanting, “I’m one with the Force, and the Force is with me,” and I smile with glee when I see Darth Vader show up and obliterate those Rebel soldiers in the close moments of the film that transition into the original 1977 film. Though the digital recreations of Peter Cushing and Carrie Fisher are distracting and tacky as hell, there is no doubt that Rogue One was a well-made, emotionally profound prequel.

6. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005)

It took old Georgie boy two prequels to finally get it right, as the conclusion of his second trilogy gave fans of the franchise everything they wanted from a Darth Vader origin story. Revenge of the Sith jumps forward three years into the middle of the Clone Wars, as the Jedi and Clone Army are fighting what is left of the Separatists. As Obi-Wan is off fighting to take down the evil General Grievous, an inventively designed cyborg who is the head of the Separatist army, Anakin is being tasked to spy in on Chancellor Palpatine for the Jedi Council, as well as being manipulated by Palpatine to distrust the Jedi’s orders. In laying this seed of doubt in the young Skywalker, Palpatine uses Anakin’s fragile, conflicted mind to turn him to the dark side of the force, thus creating Darth Vader, taking down the Jedi one by one, and putting in place the Empire he’s always wanted. Lucas, who solely wrote this entirety, created not only his best prequel, but he created epic tragedy as we see the fall of not just Anakin’s soul and the rise of Vader but the broken brotherhood between him and Obi-Wan and the destruction of his relationship with his wife, Padmé.  

What makes Revenge of the Sith work so well is the surprising payoff of all the previous character arcs that seemed rather tedious in the first two entries of the prequel trilogy. The romance between Anakin and Padmé is refocused around Palpatine’s strategy to turn Anakin into a member of the Sith, using the young man’s fears of losing his wife in childbirth and weaponizing them to his advantage. From a screenplay standpoint, outside of sidelining Padmé, a co-lead for the first two films, to the status of a pregnant wife at home worried about Anakin, Lucas is able to stick the emotionally resonant landing on this one, getting good performances overall from McGregor and Christensen on this outing, as well as an all-time villainous performance Ian McDiarmid (his line delivery of “unlimited power” is a particular highlight that our site’s editor-in-chief Erik Anderson and I love to recite back to one another). Revenge of the Sith features one of the best lightsaber battles in the franchise’s history as Anakin and Obi-Wan face off as enemies for the first time, surrounded by lava and fire, signifying the Jedi Order and the rise of evil order that will terrorize the galaxy for years till the Rebel Alliance is born. Note to anyone out there who gets into a duel with your former best friend: find a way to get the high ground; otherwise, you will be stuck having to be in this weird orb sleeping chamber half the time and the other half of the time you will be on all black, walking ventilator (maybe it isn’t that cool to be Darth Vader…food for thought). Revenge of the Sith is as fitting of an ending as Lucas could’ve delivered. I remember sitting in my seat on opening weekend in the summer of 2005, thinking, if this is it, then I’m glad this franchise went out on a high note. Little did I know that Star Wars would return again a decade later.

5. Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015)

“There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?” You’re damn right I did. Thanksgiving week, 2014, became a time when nothing else mattered except the 88-second teaser trailer for The Force Awakens. My fandom was reborn as I saw a whole new batch of Star Wars characters alongside the Millennium Falcon flying again. Pure nostalgia injected straight into my bloodstream, and I didn’t care at all. Flash forward one year, and I was transported back to 1999, as the anticipation was at an all-time high. Buying tickets was nearly impossible, with sites crashing within seconds of them going on sale. I was able to get two tickets to a 7:30 screening, took my girlfriend (now wife), and something happened that hadn’t in years: we waited in line to get into a movie with no reserved seats; we were in a time machine folks (for younger readers, this was the normal practice for the majority of our lives, so you have it made in the shade nowadays when getting a seat for a movie). When the opening crawl of the film began, and John Williams’s score blasted on the screen for the first time in ten years, my whole theater applauded like it was a rock concert. And just like that, we were back, baby!

Picking up thirty years (not thirty-two, take note George) after the events of original trilogy, The Force Awakens follows Rey, Finn, Poe Dameron, alongside Han Solo (an excellent Harrison Ford), Chewbacca, General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and the Resistance, as they are looking for Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), who has gone into hiding after his apprentice turned to the dark side and became Kylo Ren. Ren, alongside General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson), is in charge of carrying out the orders of Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis), the true leader of the First Order. Their goal is much the same as the Resistance: find Skywalker, destroy the last Jedi, and kill all hope remaining in the galaxy that their reign will end, much like the Empire’s did many years before. Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, The Force Awakens gave hope back to a franchise that there are still plenty of entertaining, deeply moving stories left to tell within their universe. It beautifully blends the past and the future to create a spectacular film that holds up to this day. Every new character is deeply layered and complex in their own unique way, especially Daisy Ridley’s Rey, who ranks right up there with the original trio of heroes as one of the best characters in the franchise to date. Sure the film’s structure is basically A New Hope (instead of a Death Star, they have to destroy a Death Star planet, the plans to find Luke are given to an adorable droid named BB-8, and older mentor to our main protagonist is killed by the hands of the Sith baddie, etc.), but in order to create something new, sometimes you have to build that foundation from something we’ve previously seen done well before, and in doing that, an instant Star Wars classic is born.

4. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983)

After my current rewatch, there is no question that Return of the Jedi is still the best final chapter of a trilogy in the Star Wars franchise. Set a year after the events of The Empire Strikes Back, we are thrust into the final stages of the Empire’s construction of a second Death Star (Because, you know, the first one didn’t work, so why not make another one? Seems like a smart, original idea from Lucas and fellow screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan. Cue the sarcasm). The Rebels are making preparations to launch a full attack to stop the Empire once and for all, but first, they must save Han Solo from the clutches of the gangster Jabba the Hutt (a glorious creature design by the Jim Hensen company). In doing this, Luke (a full Jedi knight now), Leia, Chewbacca, and company set off to save their friend and, in doing so, take part in one of the best action sequences in the franchise. As they save Han and take down bounty hunter Boba Fett and Jabba’s henchmen one by one, we see Luke’s newly constructed, green lightsaber; one that I owned when I was little and brought out every time I watched this scene. It was the coolest Luke had ever been, and until the other films, it was the most we’d seen a Jedi at the height of their powers before, and it still is cool to watch to this day.

After this incredible opening, your mileage on the film may vary if you like or don’t like one aspect included in this episode, the Ewoks. While some may find them to be a little annoying (a prelude of what was coming in the prequels), they are harmless for the most part, and during the Battle of Endor, there are rather tender moments when director Richard Marquand, Lucas, and Kasdan rest some of the emotional weight of the film on the loss of some of the Ewoks, and it is surprisingly effective and moving. But the ultimate strength of Return of the Jedi lies in the handling of the Luke/Vader storyline, where a conflicted Vader must bring his son forward to the Emperor, testing his loyalty to the dark side of the force. Twisting his devilish knife into the soul of the young Jedi knight, the Emperor tests Luke to his core, forcing him to make a choice of joining him as his new apprentice or dying as the last Jedi. Knowing that there is still good in his father and that the force is strong in his family (the reveal of Leia being his sister adds impeccable stakes to Luke’s decision-making for the third act of this film and the franchise moving forward), he doesn’t give in to the Emperor, and at that moment, Vader disappears, and Anakin Skywalker is reborn. It’s a beautiful conclusion to the original trilogy, providing closure and peace for all the characters we’ve grown so fond of throughout the first three films.

Big side note: At the end of the film, when Luke sees all the force ghosts of Obi-Wan, Yoda, and his father Anakin, we see Hayden Christensen as Anakin rather than Sebastian Shaw, the actor who portrays him in the final scenes of the film. Lucas, when he was in his phase of remastering the hell out of all these movies in the 1990s and the 2000s for home video release, did this to bridge the original trilogy with the prequel trilogy. While I get the idea behind this, it’s still a distracting, rather stupid idea, and every time we get to the end of this movie, I sit there and wonder what Shaw and his family thought about the actor getting erased from the world’s biggest franchise—pretty messed up, George.

3. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)

Back to where it all began. The original 1977 Star Wars, later retitled Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, is just one of those kinds of films you remember seeing for the first time as a cinephile and, for many, is the reason why they fell in love with movies at such a young age. For me, it was a vessel to explore movies and ideas beyond just the average drama or comedy found on cable or in the theaters, as well as a bonding moment with my Dad. Though the film’s opening suggests that what you are seeing happened “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away,” every time I put on A New Hope, it feels weirdly new to me, like I’m still discovering its majesty viewing after viewing. At the same time, during this viewing, I felt as if I was seeing something so familiar that has been a part of me my whole life; a story that is just as important as any nursery rhyme or fairy tale ever presented to me in my adolescence.

The story follows the ongoing war between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, as Princess Leia is captured by Darth Vader, and held as their prisoner on the Death Star, a planet-killing weapon of mass destruction. Leia hides the plans to take down the base in the hands of two protocol droids named R2-D2 and C3PO (Kenny Baker, Anthony Daniels, regular staples of the franchise), and they end up in the hands of Luke Skywalker, a young man looking to leave his home planet, searching for a life beyond the stars. When the Empire comes looking for the droids, he ends up coming in contact with Obi-Wan Kenobi (the legendary Alec Guinness), who helps Luke not only escape the clutches of the Empire and forge a plan to save the Princess, but begins to teach him the ways of the Force, and starts him down the path of becoming a Jedi knight. Throw in Han Solo, Chewbacca, and the Millennium Falcon, and you’ve got an adventure film that became a cultural phenomenon, becoming one of the biggest box office films of all time, gathering several Oscar nominations including Best Picture, launching the careers of several members of the cast into superstardom, and advancing the technical aspects of cinema forward for decades to come. It may be basic to say that A New Hope is an influential film on one’s life, because as you grow up your film taste changes and you can explore the medium and discover the many brilliant artists it holds at your leisure. But here I am, stating that one of the greatest, most influential films of all time; a pop-cultural phenomenon, will always remain as one of the key significant factors into why I fell in love with movies.

2. Star Wars: Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017)

While A New Hope holds a special place in my heart, the top two selections for this ranking are the best films the franchise has ever offered. In following up the massive success that was The Force Awakens, the sequel saga was passed onto writer-director Rian Johnson to carry on the ideas and broaden the potential that Abrams and company had established. What he delivered was the most intelligent, complex, challenging, divisive, and ultimately, consequential entry in the franchise since The Empire Strikes Back. Setting The Last Jedi shortly after the events of its predecessor, the urgency in each decision made by leaders of the Resistance is felt as they are being chased into space by the First Order, taking their remaining ships down one by one. As Finn, Poe, Leia, and the rest of the crew are surviving to save the last spark of hope remaining in the galaxy, Rey has found Luke Skywalker, who is still reluctant to train her in the ways of the force, has he let down his nephew Ben Solo and he transformed in Kylo Ren. Speaking of Kylo, he is licking his wounds after Rey beat him in the last encounter, angered that he still has conflicted feelings about joining the dark side of the Force. As Luke starts to train Rey, we see that she and Kylo are connected by more than just a rivalry, and it forces the truth of not just what happened to Luke and Ben to come forward, but who Rey’s parents are, and what her place is in this story.

Criticized by a mostly toxic, online fan base who don’t like to be challenged by the movies they watch, Johnson expertly crafts a bold step forward for the franchise, establishing that lineage isn’t the only thing that matters for Rey or anyone else in this franchise to make a difference. You can be a scavenger (Rey), a former Stormtrooper (Finn), a trigger happy pilot (Poe), a maintenance technician (the lovely Rose Tico, played by the fantastic Kelly Marie Tran), or even a farm boy from a desert planet who is always looking to the horizon, longing to make a difference in this never-ending fight between good and evil. Star Wars has always been about the hope within people who make sacrifices in order to make sure that they can fight another day, and see beyond themselves. As Yoda says in the film, “the greatest teacher, failure is,” and it’s this lesson that allows Rey to grow into the Jedi she is destined to become, saves the Resistance from crumbling into despair, and forces Luke to finally confront his feelings and be the symbol, the hero, the uncle, the brother he was destined to be. Johnson perfectly understands this, creating something that still has the potential to change the perspective on what audiences and artists expect when they watch or want to make a Star Wars movie. Factor in the career-best performances for Ridley, Hamill, Driver, alongside some of the best technical work the franchise has ever offered (special shout out to cinematographer Steve Yedlin), The Last Jedi is exactly the kind of Star Wars movie we should demand Disney and LucasFilm going forward not The Rise of Skywalker. (Side note: Justice for Broom Kid in the final scene of this film, who is Johnson’s final example used to showcase that anyone can be one with the Force. You deserve your own spin-off movie, as well as my beloved, adorable Porgs.)

1. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

One could only imagine what it was like to be in a theater in the summer of 1980, after three years of waiting to get a new Star Wars movie and experience one of the biggest plot twists in the history of cinema (“No, I am your father”). But beyond Darth being Luke’s Daddy, The Empire Strikes Back stands on top of this list because of Irvin Kershner’s direction, the magnificent screenplay put together by Leigh Brackett, Kasdan, and Lucas, the top notch production design, editing, cinematography, and performances. Simply put, the film is absolute perfection. Within this perfection not only can you find the best Star Wars film, a film that surpasses the original in almost every single way, but would be my pick for the greatest sequel of all time.

Picking up three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebels have gone into hiding as the Empire has been scouring every system they can find for them. Vader, whom we last saw blasted out of space by the Millennium Falcon, is obsessively trying to find that ship along with Luke Skywalker, so he can turn the potential Jedi over to his master, Emperor Palpatine. We don’t talk enough about how funny Darth Vader is in this film, force choking any Imperial Officer that disappoints him; going full petty diva mode trying to take down Luke and his friends. On the ice planet of Hoth, Luke sees a Force ghost Obi-Wan tell him he must leave his friends and go train with his former master, Yoda. As Luke finds Yoda, learning everything he possibly can from the wise Jedi master, Han, Leia, and company have Vader right on their tails, and are caught in Cloud City, where Luke goes and faces off against his father for the first time, mano a mano.

There are moments scattered throughout the two-hour and four-minute runtime that are seared into my brain and my heart, like the entire battle of Hoth, Luke running around the swamps of Dagobah with Yoda on his back, the multiple ways each character tries to fix the hyperdrive on the Falcon, Han and Leia finding their love for one another (even though she also full on kisses her brother in this movie too, but that’s their business). More include Yoda lifting Luke’s X Wing by using the Force, every smooth line delivery from Lando Calrissian (the always cool Billy Dee Williams), and the scream of pain that Chewbacca lets out while holding Leia as Han is put into frozen carbonite (hell, throw in the whole “I love you” “I know” part as well). At this point, I could just continue writing out every single scene from the film but that is the point, there isn’t a bad, wasted moment in The Empire Strikes Back. Every moment in the film feels vital and raised to a level of appropriate danger that we know our heroes can’t escape this time, thus we accept their fate and know that this is a minor loss in the battle. It’s when the franchise went from being more than just a great space opera and transformed into a Shakespearian tragedy for the modern age. It is an essential 20th-century American masterpiece.

You can stream all eleven live-action Star Wars films on Disney+. May the Force be with you.