Star Wars: The best order to watch every movie and TV show, from The Mandalorian to The Last Jedi
Only the major canon material included
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Your support makes all the difference.Next month marks the release of Star Wars:The Rise of Skywalker, the final instalment of the saga that first began in 1977.
While some enjoy watching the various movies and TV shows in release order so that events, such as the Darth Vader reveal, have the intended impact, others – including George Lucas himself – have taken to re-watching everything in chronological order (for a more in-depth look at the various watching orders, read our article here).
So, where to start? Below, we break down the Star Wars timeline, only featuring the major canon material, broken into smaller segments.
We have stuck to the films and TV shows for the purpose of this piece, rather than delve into comics, books, games, online promotional material, etc.
The Prequels
Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Episode II: Attack of the Clones
The Clone Wars (film)
The Clone Wars (seasons 1 - 6 plus unfinished episodes)
Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
While perhaps the worst reviewed era of Star Wars, the prequels establish how a young boy became the most-feared villain in all the galaxy. Timeline wise, the prequels are quite messy because of The Clone Wars TV series. Two episodes take place before the 3D animated movie, with the series often jumping backwards in time to explore other characters. For the series to make the most sense, fans should watch in the intended order and not ruin the surprise of going backwards.
The middle films
Solo: A Star Wars Story
Untitled Obi-Wan Kenobi TV show
Untitled Cassian Andor TV show
Star Wars Rebels (seasons 1 – 4)
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Ever watched the original trilogy and wondered how Han Solo became the dry-witted smuggler fans adore? Or how the Rebel Alliance got those Death Star plans? Well, these films, designed to fill in the gaps, have you covered as they answer the questions you previously used your imagination to answer. rogue One is even getting its own prequel series on streaming service Disney+ – it’ll explore the role of Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) alongside K-2S0 (Alan Tudyk) in the growing Rebel Alliance.
Unlike The Clone Wars, fellow 3D animated TV show Rebels has a much more straight forward timeline – the series follows a group of rebels as they confront the Empire.
The poor box office performance for Solo put an end to any more of these big screen adventures for the time being. One that was rumoured – an Obi-Wan Kenobi film – will proceed as a TV show on Disney+. Ewan McGregor himself revealed it’ll take place eight years after Revenge of the Sith.
The original trilogy
Episode IV: A New Hope
Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
These film are where the saga all began. The original trilogy will forever be praised as the greatest era of Star Wars movies, and rightly so. Disney has yet to announce any TV shows or spin-offs that’ll take place between these three films.
The Sequels
The Mandalorian
Star Wars Resistance
Episode VII: The Force Awakens
Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
After Disney acquired LucasFilm for $4b, they rapidly began churning out Star Wars movies, starting with JJ Abrams’ The Force Awakens. Now, the company are exploring the era seen in the original trilogy with Jon Favreau’s The Mandalorian, which will premiere in the US later this month). It’ll take place five years after the fall of the Empire – as depicted in Return of the Jedi – and 25 years before the emergence of the First Order as witnessed in The Force Awakens. Disney+ will also premiere an untitled animated series centred on a young fighter pilot in Resistance.
Spin-offs
So, what about that Rian Johnson trilogy? And the cancelled trilogy from Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and DB Weiss? What form they’ll take and where they’ll fit on the timeline is completely unknown at this stage. They will reportedly have nothing to do with Skywalkers, though, which will be a drastic change for the series.
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