A Star Wars Story hits theaters and that means we now have 10 live-action theatrically released Star Wars movies. So today we’re gonna rank all 10 Star Wars movies from the worst to the best. Before I give you my ranking, go ahead and tell me down below in the comments section how do you rank the Star Wars movies? Which ones do you love, which ones do you hate, and which ones are right there in the middle totally mediocre? Let’s have a nice lively discussion that’s respectful at the same time.
With that said, let’s get started. Coming in in last place is Episode II – Attack of the Clones. This is a movie that I find that very little of it works. It’s probably the worst offender when it comes to excessive use of CGI and green screen for action sequences and for that reason, I don’t find the action sequences very exciting at all. But the real problem here is that it lacks a compelling central narrative to drive the story forward. The basic premise of the movie is that someone’s trying to assassinate Padme which leads to Anakin being assigned as her protector and Obi-Wan trying to investigate who’s trying to assassinate her. The problem here is that there’s no intrigue in this central mystery because essentially we already know who’s behind this plot. Likewise, there’s no chemistry at all between Anakin and Padme and the acting and the dialogue here are dreadful. It makes for a very slow and sometimes tedious middle act to the movie. Now there are some parts of the action sequences, especially some of the lightsaber dueling that is a little bit exciting and there is some emotional punch when Anakin confronts the Sand People but otherwise, this is a very mediocre at best movie.
Coming in at nineth place is Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Now to me, this is the best structured of the prequels. Very early on, there’s a clear conflict established, the characters have motivations that you can understand. And the evasion and impending war give a sense of urgency from beginning to end. Likewise, I kind of love the lightsaber action inside of this movie especially the final duel with Darth Maul. But the film also has some of the most glaring and off-putting issues of any of the movies inside of the franchise.
One of the big ones is of course the slapstick and juvenile humor, much of it coming from Jar Jar Binks, there’s fart humor in here, it just doesn’t feel like it fits inside of a Star Wars movie. Likewise, Lucas made some very strange character choices in the movie, he makes Anakin a child, sort of makes Qui-Gon Jinn the lead character of the movie. During their middle act on Tatooine, Obi-Wan is off on a spaceship not spending time bonding with Anakin. This means this movie can’t develop the central love story between Anakin and Padme at all because that would be wildly inappropriate and we don’t get any of the friendship between Anakin and Obi-Wan established either. Likewise, the pacing of this movie is kind of all over the place. There’s a bunch of really long action sequences that are followed by really long stretches with no action. The most frustrating thing about this movie is most of these problems are very fixable. Overall, I think this movie could have been great but the execution is so bad, it’s definitely not great.
At number eight is Episode VIII – The Last Jedi. Now I greatly respect what they were going for with this movie, trying to subvert expectations, doing a deconstruction of heroes, the Jedi, the Sith, and doing this character study of a broken hero that’s made mistakes and is reevaluating everything that we’ve seen up to this point in time. The problem is in their effort to subvert my expectations, I don’t think that I liked what they gave me more than I would have liked what I was expecting. Beyond that, I thought there were a number of story issues with the film, the Luke-Kylo Ren fallout sequence seemed overly simplified. The rows in Finn storylime seemed like a very odd rabbit trail for the film that I didn’t even think made sense with the way it played out in the film and then the Poe Dameron plot line seemed to rely entirely on miscommunication and people simply not communicating for the story to progress forward in a way that I didn’t find very believable.
But it’s also probably the best-looking Star Wars movies. There’s some amazing twists and turns that I did not see coming at all. And some of the action sequences in it are choreographed exceptionally well. So this might be the most frustrating movie in the franchise for me. And number seven is Episode III – Revenge of the Sith. Now this is a movie that I think has some exceptional elements to it. The order 66 sequence is some of the most gut-wrenching and emotional of all of the Star Wars movies. Like Phantom Menace, I love the lightsaber action in this movie, the duel between Obi-Wan and Anakin, I think is exceptional. When it’s a lightsaber duel, when it turns into a lava thing, that got a little bit weird. But when it’s a lightsaber duel, I think the choreography is excellent. And I think this is the movie that best captures the relationship between Anakin and Obi-Wan and you can actually see that they have some friendship and respect between the two of them. The problem with this movie is I simply do not buy the storyline that Lucas picked for how Anakin turned to the dark side in just how quickly it happens.
I think that there were so many other directions that could have gone, plot lines they could have chosen that would have been more effective, felt like they made more sense and had a more natural flow for the way they play out. There’s also a couple elements towards the end of the movie that really don’t work, in particular Padme dying of a broken heart and Darth Vader in his uniform going no! Which is easily the most embarrassing thing in all of these movies. – No! – But there really are a bunch of great things about this movie, it’s just counterbalanced by some really bad stuff too. Coming in at number six is Solo: A Star Wars Story.
What I absolutely love about this movie is that it’s such a different type of story set inside of this universe that we love. It’s not about the force, it’s not about the rise and fall of the Empire, it’s about the criminal underworld and it’s a heist movie and I love that. Of course because of that, it’s also the least ambitious of any of the movies inside of the Star Wars universe. It’s just kind of a fun adventure and I think it delivers on that. Now there is some clunky storytelling at times as it’s trying to span a bunch of time while telling a high story at the same time. Likewise, it has the prequel problem that we know where Han ends up later on in life and so we also know that some of these characters aren’t in his life later on, makes it a bit predictable at times and I also just never bought that Donald Glover and Alden Ehrenreich were Lando and Han Solo.
They felt like charismatic lead characters that I enjoyed seeing on screen, I just never thought of them as younger versions of the characters that I know from the original trilogy. All in all, this wasn’t a movie that was trying to be the biggest and greatest Star Wars movie. It was trying to deliver a good time and it delivered a good time. And number five is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. I think the idea of taking the opening crawl of A New Hope and turning it into a prequel is actually a very clever and smart way to make a spin-off movie.
And in doing so, they probably made the most serious and war focused of all of the Star Wars movies. I think the third act of this movie is just phenomenal, the space battles in this movie, I think are the best space battles of any movie since Return of The Jedi. In between the fate of our heroes, that excellent Darth Vader sequence and that final cameo, this movie has one of the best final three to five minutes and most satisfying conclusions to a movie that I can think of.