The Sith List: How to Watch Every Star Wars Movie and Show in Order

The one that started it all. Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope will always stand as one of the greatest feats of world-building in a single film; it just had a way of making believers out of people. George Lucas put together a winning team here: Luke, the naive farm boy out on a big adventure; Leia, the political pragmatist; and Han, the cocky smuggler who finds a cause he can commit to. It transformed the face and making of film and it introduced a generation of kids (me included) to the sheer power, potential and scope for dreams of cinema. The Hero’s Journey has never been so well realized.

Empire is just about perfect. One of, if not the greatest, sci-fi films and one of the greatest films ever made. The pacing is on point, the way the two parallel stories of Han and Leia on one hand and Luke on the other mesh together were very well thought out. The confrontation between Luke as an apprentice and Vader as a master was brilliant, and the “I am your father” climax is, in my view, one of the great scenes in cinema. And, even though you know from watching it multiple times what to expect, it has an amazing amount of emotional impact. Also, the Millennium Falcon sitting on that creature’s tongue is why I go to the movies.

Return of the Jedi is a thrill ride. From the escape of Jabba’s palace to the arrival on Endor with the speeder bike chases—this one ranks high simply for the spectacle and the more generally successful “blockbuster” feel. It has some silly moments for sure, such as Chewie doing the Tarzan yodel as he rope-swings to the AT-ST, but It’s got my all-time favorite Star Wars moment in it: Luke’s pummeling of Vader across the throne room floor, with the music swelling as he draws on his anger and teeters on the edge of the Dark Side. Also, Ewoks defeating a legion of Stormtroopers with sticks and stones debunks capitalism better than any Michael Moore film.

As the first Star Wars film in chronological order and the fourth film released theatrically, The Phantom Menace brought a lot of depth to the universe. The political motivations we witness at the senate, a double-ended lightsaber wielded by a horned villain, the powerful dynamic between Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi and the inclusion of a number of exciting new alien races all added together to make it one of my favorite Star Wars films. It also has beautiful twilight scenes on the planet Coruscant, pod racing and the Jedi Council. The film levels up with an extraordinary score that’s worth every cent of whatever Maestro John Williams charged since it all defines the story, scenes and emotions. Plus, any film that can spawn a character such as Jar Jar Binks is simply majestic.

Attack of the Clones is a very strange film for me. I can probably tell you approximately everything that happens and in what order, but I’d really struggle to tell you what the hell the plot is supposed to be. While some say the iconic Christopher Lee (aka Count Dooku) “saves” this installment, that ridiculous scene at the end of the film, where he flies away on the hideously CGI speeder, completely bereft of dignity, is burned into my soul as a core memory. Still, Attack of the Clones is worth watching for the last 45 minutes. It is one stunning set piece after another, a masterpiece of dramatic escalation which homages everything from Harryhausen to Kurosawa—Seven Hundred Samurai, if you will. This movie could have been improved tenfold by including one thing: When young Boba Fett picks up Jango Fett’s helmet, his head should have fallen out and rolled across the arena. Yoda’s martial arts skills are fire.

The final hour of Revenge of the Sith is where the prequel trilogy finally gets going and finds some of the magic that the OG trilogy had. The dark descent from (spoiler alert) Mace Windu’s death and Order 66 through to the end is spectacular, Vader’s “birth” notwithstanding. Palpatine and Kenobi are both played fantastically. The way too over-the-top (and unconvincing) CGI futuristic cityscapes are awesome; the crash of the starship amazing, and I actually like Hayden Christensen being all pouty and moody. Ewan McGregor’s delivery of Obi-Wan’s last words (he thinks) to Anakin are one of the best moments of any film in the franchise.

The introduction of “snips,” errr, Ahsoka Tano. In a universe of bad guys, worse guys, and iffy guys, she lives by a code, takes the side of good, fortunately still has a greater purpose, and (even more fortunately for her) has a target in Thrawn and a padawan in Sabine. More on that later.

One of the best series, animated or not, about war and what people going through war experience. I’ll put the Siege of Mandalore arc as some of the best canon content ever. Also, Darth Maul has been a highlight of the animated wing of the franchise since his resurrection (oops, another spoiler alert).

This animated delight is the one to beat. Series creator, Dave Filoni, took a cartoon with a limited budget and a Y7 rating and made it fly. It just got better and better as it went on. The hidden Sith temple was Wizard!

The Force Awakens to a lot of self-referencing, recycled plot elements, settings and character arcs. Look, I liked the frisson between Finn and Rey. I liked the opening set-piece. I didn’t like the fact that the First Order was essentially a renamed Empire and in no way does the First Order feel like an evil empire. Also, how did the First Order, as remnants of the defeated Empire, even get so powerful in the first place? As an allegory for WWII (from which Star Wars took many a cue), it’d be like the Allies just let the Nazis reform again under a new name and let them carry on with the V2 project, build new battleships, etc. unopposed until they became bastards again. The Force Awakens isn’t a film, it’s an A New Hope tribute band.

Flawed, quite ridiculous, and melodramatic in places, Rogue One is the Star Wars film I watch the most. It’s also arguably the “best” Star Wars film for its setting, atmosphere, storytelling and coherent pacing that transitions over to A New Hope perfectly (with an intense Darth Vader scene to finish.) For myself, it is second only to The Empire Strikes Back (but I think that’s only because of my toxic nostalgia).

The Last Jedi follows the standard mid-trilogy episode where you put your heroes in the worst possible place at the end of the act. To that point, it works. However, I think that it’s mind-boggling that the studio gave Rian Johnson free rein to make such an iconoclastic and weirdly existentialist film. Watching Yoda re-opening Luke’s eyes to the wonders of the universe around him and the two of them cheerfully enjoying the bonfire of all the Jedi’s ancient teachings. Well, that takes chutzpah, because it basically scorched-earths the Jedi philosophy. While Laura Dern’s management skills are highly questionable in this installment, TLJ gave me what I’d always wanted to see in Star Wars: Luke Skywalker milking an alien.

Take away all the callbacks (i.e. gold dice, how Solo got his name) and it’s a terrific adventure movie. I’d say it’s more Indiana Jones than the last two Indiana Jones flicks. The execution of the action scenes, from the American Graffiti-style car chase to Han Solo shooting Tobias Beckett in cold blood because he knew Beckett was about to do. It comes alive in a way that none of the contemporary Star Wars productions have before.

Really high on the art style with this one. It has that fresh 3D high-frames cel-shaded Windwaker thing going on. The show has only two seasons, and the episodes are short, but there is enough here to keep the kiddies content. And, after all, Star Wars is for the children.

Objectively, The Rise of Skywalker is no better or worse than Return of the Jedi. Of all the most recent Disneyfied films, this was the one that you could imagine having played making it up as you go along in a school yard, at a younger time of life. They had new props (the dagger, the wayfinder), new characters, and new worlds and it really zipped along at quite a pace (ADHD on film!). The Rise of Skywalker filled in further background on Rey and, let’s be honest here, Emperor Palpatine is not the worst of villains to bring back, even if he was resurrected via text scrawl. It’s great fun—if you don’t think about any of it.

This one explores the themes around post-conflict reconstruction and fragile peaces, whilst still harking back to old western themes in a satisfying way. It works best when it is in Saturday-morning adventure serial mode—Mando and Grogu show up at a planet, help a group of locals, and move on to the next quest.

Introduced in the last season of The Clone Wars animated series, this one does a good job of laying out who they are for any new viewers dipping into Revenge of the Sith to help establish the timeline and bring it all together. The entire run is solid.

This anthology animated series has more emotion, excitement, and tension in just a single episode to make this Nerf Herder take note. The last Dooku episode and the final Ashoka episode are standouts for me.

I’m erasing from my memory the chase through the woodland for Kid Leia, Reva’s parkour, and the sometimes-incomprehensible logic of the story. It’s fine. But, credit where credit is due: The lightsaber duel between Obi Wan and Vader is worth the price of admission.

I was never convinced that two minutes of being digested in the Sarlacc Pit was enough to give Boba Fett a Damascene conversion, but I am one of those who really enjoyed Boba and the cultural rehabilitation of the Sand People.

I could write an entire article on Andor alone, which is essentially trilogies of movies split up into episodes. The dialog, sets, cast, score, everything all come together to create one of (if not) the best Star Wars stories yet. It’s part espionage thriller, bank heist, prison break, and political drama that all lead right up to the beginning of Rogue One. Andor is head and shoulders above all the other spinoffs and it absolutely presses all the right buttons for me.

A lot of the characters in Ashoka populated the Rebels and the narrative builds upon how that series ended. Still, there is a lot to like in this live version. Baylan is a nuanced, atypical Jedi villain. Huang the droid also breaks the mold. The lightsaber fight scenes are slower and more of a styled out off shoot Form V Shien type of combat. There’s plenty of classic Star Wars look and feel, X-Wings and all.

Another compilation of animated stories where we focus on a former Jedi, a bunch of inept dead Inquisitors and some other currently-dead Nightsister characters from the Mandalorian/Ashoka shows. When I think “Empire” I think of, you know, the military branches of it, not a bunch of dead villains of the week.

It has everything we want from Star Wars, including great action (two of the best lightsaber fights ever), intriguing characters, and the strongest old-school vibe that I’ve gotten from Disney-era Star Wars to date—and then it got cancelled after one season. We need to see way more of the High Republic.

I have a strange nostalgia for that time post-Jedi when they were trying to see how much creative ketchup was in the Star Wars bottle. Skeleton Crew reminds me of that kind of energy. It’s a weird goofy riff on Star Wars, but also Treasure Island and The Goonies.

Yet another collection of animated episodes that semi-focus on former Jedi turned hired gun Asajj Ventress. She’s an intriguing character and I’m glad she’s getting more screen time here living her best Krillin-with-hair life.