As a series, Star Wars has been around for nearly 50 years, but it sometimes feels like longer, in both good and bad ways. Keeping up with the series can be hard work, and there’s further exhaustion that comes with engaging in debates about the series and its quality (or occasional lack thereof). And that’s when you’re just talking about the movies. There is so much more to Star Wars beyond the 11 live-action films in the series, nine of which make up the Skywalker Saga (1977-2019). If you can find two people who rank those nine core movies in exactly the same way, then congrats, because that probably took you a very long time. Or you’re lying. You gotta work on your mind tricks (or just use money).
So, declaring a handful of Star Wars movies as masterpieces will have some disagreeing, but that’s that. Star Wars seems to inspire more passion among its fans than most movie-related franchises out there, but that could also just be the size of the fanbase making it more mathematically likely that there’ll be outspoken or even quick-to-anger people. It happens. Anyway, when looking at the truly great Star Wars stuff out there, the focus here is on the movies, so there won’t be any TV shows, video games, or other Star Wars-related things. Star Wars began on the big screen, and though it’s not been on the big screen since 2019 (who knows why?), that’s where it feels most at home. To keep things interesting, there will be at least one pick from all three main “eras” of Star Wars to date: the original trilogy (1977-1983), the prequel trilogy (1999-2005), and the Disney era (which formally began in 2015 with The Force Awakens, and is still going… probably).
4
‘Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith’ (2005)
Directed by George Lucas
When it comes to the prequel trilogy, The Phantom Menace is messy but also over-hated; a film with some pretty strong highs and a few noteworthy lows. Watching it and being whipped back and forth between good and bad isn’t too dissimilar to watching Return of the Jedi (though that 1983 film is ultimately better). Attack of the Clones is the slowest and most disappointing prequel, but there’s still enough story there to make it worth watching, if only so you can fully appreciate and enjoy what’s easily the best of the prequels: Revenge of the Sith. And it’s not just being included here because of all the memes, but the memes do help. Revenge of the Sith has a heightened level of drama, exemplified by how over-the-top some of the dialogue is, and so many individual lines and sequences have become iconic, with the remixing, reworking, and overall memeifying of so much of the movie giving the entire thing a second life.
But then when you approach Revenge of the Sith without finding much of it funny (easier said than done), it does impress as the darkest hour of the overall Skywalker Saga. It’s a space opera tragedy that was built toward throughout Episodes I and II, and also hinted at during the original trilogy. It’s quite devastating stuff, it’s undeniably bleak for a blockbuster, and it ends with a serious amount of sound and fury (and it’s signifying something). Also, speaking of great sound, John Williams went all-out with composing here, and though the work he did on the Star Wars series was consistently good, Revenge of the Sith might well have his best work as a composer found outside the original trilogy. Hell, it’s operatic, bombastic, and bold enough to arguably be as good as most of the music he composed for the original trilogy. George Lucas had a vision for the prequels, and though he took a while to get to the truly great stuff, Revenge of the Sith showed that the wait was largely worth it.
3
‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ (2017)
Directed by Rian Johnson
Call it a part of the sequel trilogy if you want, or part of the so far five-entry-long Disney era of Star Wars, but either way, The Last Jedi is the mid-point of the post-Lucas Star Wars movies. Five movies released between 2015 and 2019 were too many, and in the more than five years since the last one came out, no other Star Wars movie has been released theatrically. Those at Disney might’ve got a little excited. Or, maybe the quantity of Star Wars movies could’ve been alright if more of them worked and tried different things. If all of them had tried to do as many different things as The Last Jedi, that could’ve become exhausting in a different way, but The Last Jedi was a bold step in a series that was at risk of becoming tired.
What The Last Jedi aimed to do was take newly introduced characters in further/more interesting directions, all while bringing back older ones (namely, Luke Skywalker) in ways you might not expect; ways that could, at first, feel challenging. Luke is not how he was, but his story here is an interesting and morally complex one, and by the film’s end, he is back to being a hero. At the risk of sounding condescending, he goes through another character arc that’s not just a repeat of the one he went on in the original trilogy, and it’s great.
With The Last Jedi, Rian Johnson made a pretty great case for himself that he, after Lucas, was the best person to be put in charge of Star Wars.
The Last Jedi might subvert some expectations, infamously so, but there’s a certain excitement that comes from the feeling things can go off in weird directions. It’s a movie about failure and disappointment, but not without also showing ways out of such ruts; it can be more inspiring than some give it credit for. Anyway, it also looks the best by far out of any Star Wars movie made without George Lucas’s involvement, and Rian Johnson made a pretty great case for himself that he, after Lucas, was the best person to be put in charge of Star Wars, but whether he ever returns to this far, far away galaxy soon (or a long time from now) remains to be seen.
2
‘Star Wars’ (1977)
Directed by George Lucas
In comparison to Revenge of the Sith and The Last Jedi, it feels rather straightforward to argue that the original Star Wars is a masterpiece. If anything, the challenge here comes from simply saying things that people already know or accept. If you count it as science fiction, it’s great, if you see it as fantasy in space, it’s also great, if you like it for the action/adventure, it soars, if you want something a little goofy and endearing, it’s got those qualities, and everything is well-balanced. It does so many things right, as a film, that highlighting it as one of the greatest movies of all time, regardless of genre, feels more than fair.
And at its core, Star Wars does still work as something simple and standalone. There’s a young man who dreams of a better and more exciting life, and then he gets wrapped up in an adventure that involves saving a princess, with a band of unlikely heroes (not just humans, either). And then that mission leads to something bigger, with the climax having planet-ending stakes involved, and the escalation toward that point feeling natural and well-earned. All the while, the characters are unforgettable, the dialogue always quotable, and the influence taken from a wide range of older movies quite remarkable. Of all the four movies in the series George Lucas directed, Star Wars (1977) was the best, and there is only one other Star Wars movie that can honestly call itself better.
1
‘The Empire Strikes Back’ (1980)
Directed by Irvin Kershner
And that movie is, unsurprisingly, The Empire Strikes Back. There was a mention before regarding the slim chances of people ranking the Star Wars movies in the same way, but one thing you will probably see in a bunch of rankings is The Empire Strikes Back at the top, and Star Wars (1977) in second place. You’ve got the difficult-to-fault original followed by what’s probably one of the best sequels ever made; something that took all the great things already found in the first movie and elevated them to greater heights. As the title implies/threatens, the Empire does strike back here after being defeated in the previous movie, and that results in a stunning and large-scale opening act. But things don’t slow down from there, as the Rebels, while scattered, still find themselves fighting for their lives, all the while, Luke learns more about what it means to be a Jedi before, less expectedly, also learning about his past.
And everything builds to a phenomenal climax that’s just as strong and striking as all the action near the start of The Empire Strikes Back. It’s hard to imagine many people not loving a film that does this many things right, and it’s undeniably one of the greatest of its decade too (or, again, of all time). It’s still a battle of good and evil, but those good and evil forces are twisted and complicated just a little; enough to show that there is indeed more to Star Wars than just two 100% clear-cut sides. That The Empire Strikes Back can do this while still being an approachable and highly entertaining blockbuster is, in the end, what makes it an untouchable classic.