Star Wars movies: All 11 films ranked from worst to best, from The Rise of Skywalker to The Last Jedi

From the original trilogy to the new standalone films, with all the Gungans, Jawas, and porgs in-between 

Clarisse Loughrey
Wednesday 18 December 2019 12:00 GMT
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi Back trailer

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Star Wars is now one of the highest-grossing franchises in the world, so it’s odd to think that it was once George Lucas’s great creative gamble. It was his desire to adapt the Flash Gordon comics he had grown up and fallen in love with – and his failure to secure the rights to them – that first sparked the idea that he should write his own space opera adventure. On a budget of only $11m (£8.3m), which was small by Hollywood standards at the time, Star Wars became one of the most financially successful films of all time, earning more than $775m (£587m) to date.

It was followed by two successful sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Lucas returned to the world he had created with a brand new trilogy, set before the events of the first three films.

Although financially successful, the prequels are not as fondly remembered as their predecessors, and are often lambasted for the bizarre creative decisions that led to Jar Jar Binks, midichlorians, and an obsession with trade disputes. After Disney bought Lucasfilm, taking over the rights to future Star Wars movies, production began on a new trilogy.

The first two instalments, The Force Awakens (2015) and The Last Jedi (2017), achieved both critical and box office success, while Disney also initiated a new branch of the franchise focused on standalone films, starting with Rogue One (2016) and Solo (2018).

As the final chapter of the new trilogy is released, here are all the main Star Wars feature films – discounting the Ewok movies and Clone Wars film – ranked from worst to best.

Click through the gallery below.

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