Tuesday , March 19 2024

Almost every Star Wars movie and TV show on Disney+, ranked


With its near-total collection of on-screen Star Wars content, Disney+ immediately became the home for all things Force-related when it launched in the UK in March – and the collection is about to expand even further. Although Disney created some unwelcome publicity for itself by appearing to claim legal ownership of the #MayThe4th hashtag, it will nevertheless be marking ‘Star Wars Day’ with the arrival of new Star Wars programming on its streaming service.

Yet with everything from the Original Trilogy through to the brand new series The Mandalorian to plough through, even the most ardent fan may struggle to determine what is most worth their eyeball time. Never fear: we are here with our definitive ranking (that the entire internet will doubtlessly agree with) of all the Star Wars content on Disney+.

For the purposes of this list, we’re sticking to the canonical narrative content on Disney+. If watching all of the in-continuity Star Wars material on the streaming service still leaves you hungry for more, the documentary Empire of Dreams: The Story of the Star Wars Trilogy will appeal to viewers with an interest in the creation of the original trilogy, while younger fans will appreciate the wealth of Lego Star Wars shows available, ranging from standalone shorts to multi-season shows such as The Freemaker Adventures which weave their own continuity.

And so, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…

17. Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

Studios listening to and responding to the concerns of a fanbase can, on occasion, be a good thing. Here, it resulted in a detestable mess. Cowed by a vocal minority railing against the far superior The Last Jedi, which dared to reshape the Star Wars universe into a more complex and interesting place, The Rise of Skywalker (joining the service on May 4) scrambles to undo the previous film, sideline major characters, and reduce everything to a simple good-evil binary. Throw in plenty of dei ex machina, pointless platitudes to the Original Trilogy, and an utterly unwarranted Rey/Kylo Ren kiss seemingly to placate the “Reylo” shippers, and Rise sits as a prime example of how to ruin a trilogy – and potentially a franchise – with creative cowardice.

16. Star Wars: Attack Of The Clones

Clocking in at 142 minutes, Attack of the Clones is the longest film of the Prequel Trilogy, yet it seems to have nothing to say. This is meant to be the equivalent of Empire Strikes Back, the rousing midpoint in the trilogy where major events up-end what the viewer thinks they know. It’s meant to make us believe in the relationship between Padme and Anakin, painting a picture of a love so powerful that Padme’s inevitable death makes Anakin’s turn to the Dark Side believable. It should thrill with epic battles, and make us care about the splintering of the Galactic Republic. Instead, we get mopey teenage Anakin murdering Tusken Raiders because of unresolved mommy issues (as actor Hayden Christensen hams up the scene, to boot), zero chemistry between the romantic leads, and a plot no less bogged down in politics than its predecessor. The movie is a mess of stuff that happens, with no weight or importance. Even the action feels slow, which should be the greatest sin in a Star Wars movie.

15. Star Wars Forces Of Destiny

The idea behind these animated shorts, each around four minutes long, is a great one – highlight the powerful women of Star Wars, from Leia to Rey, by way of Ahsoka Tano and Jyn Erso. In practice, they mostly disappoint. The format isn’t the problem – the 2003 Star Wars: Clone Wars, helmed by Dexter’s Lab and Samurai Jack creator Genndy Tartakovsky, packed plenty into each of its three-minute episodes. Unfortunately, Forces of Destiny suffers from disconnected stories that rarely amount to more than “girl does stuff”, stilted animation, and rudimentary character designs, making the end result pandering, more than empowering. The characters – and viewers – deserve better.

14. Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Essentially one of the most expensive independent movies ever made, George Lucas’ total control resulted in a movie that can at best be described as “indulgent”. An over-reliance on CGI rather than the more practical effects of the Original Trilogy had its talented cast – Ewan McGregor! Liam Neeson! Natalie Portman! Samuel L. Jackson! – stuck acting largely against green screen. The detachment showed onscreen, with characters devoid of connection to the world around them. That’s all before we get onto the boring trade dispute background, the still-problematic Jar-Jar Binks, or poor Jake Lloyd – an uncomfortably young Anakin Skywalker, future Darth Vader – having to literally yell “yippee”. Still, the pod race was pretty cool.

13. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Movie)

George Lucas once referred to the animated Clone Wars movie as “almost an afterthought” – and it shows. Promoted to big screen status after the series it went on to launch was already underway, this feature-length outing seemed little more than an extended TV episode. Although still beautiful to look at, the plot – seeing Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker out to rescue Jabba the Hutt’s kidnapped son – trundles along without any sense of urgency or importance. The best thing about The Clone Wars movie was that it introduced the world to the wonderful Ahsoka Tano, Padawan to an over-promoted Anakin, and who would go on to become a pivotal and beloved character in the wider Star Wars franchise.

12. Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith

The best of the Prequel Trilogy, but to some, that may not be saying much. It’s narratively the most important of the three, particularly with the emergence of Vader as a dark force in the galaxy and Palpatine’s seizing control of the Republic birthing the Empire, but because of that weight, it seems better than it is. A continuing over-reliance on CGI robs the film of presence, and some ill-thought story decisions create still-unresolved plot holes in the longer continuity. However, there’s some genuine pathos between characters here, particularly Obi-Wan and Anakin during their pivotal battle, while the execution of Order 66 – leading to the literal execution of the Jedi, right down to the younglings in training – remains shocking. Plus, Sith has lead to some truly stellar memes, just about earning it a pass.

11. Star Wars Resistance

The newest Star Wars animated series follows aspiring pilot Kazuda Xiono, drawn into General Leia’s burgeoning Resistance to spy on the increasingly dangerous First Order. With season one set a mere six months before The Force Awakens, and season two bridging The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker, it could be the connective tissue of the Sequel Trilogy, and eventually become as pivotal to fans as The Clone Wars series. It’s off to a promising start, with a beautiful cel-shaded style and an interesting cast of characters, both familiar and new. For now though, Resistance is simply too new to have left much of a mark, although it may ultimately climb the ranks of great Star Wars material.

10. Solo: A Star Wars Story

Ostensibly an origin story for Han Solo, there’s a sense that Solo really exists to explain how the Millennium Falcon infamously “made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs” (a parsec is a measure of distance, not time). Building a whole film around a 40+ year old line of hokey dialogue isn’t the best idea though, and production struggles that went so far as replacing original directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller with Ron Howard mid-shoot show the extent of this. While Solo ultimately proves itself a serviceable adventure romp – elevated by Alden Ehrenreich and Donald Glover’s performances as younger versions of Han and Lando Calrissian, respectively – it doesn’t serve much greater purpose. Fine for an evening’s entertainment, but a thoroughly mid-table entry for the franchise.

9. Star Wars: The Force Awakens

Yes, it’s essentially a beat-for-beat redux of A New Hope but after a few years in the cinematic wilderness, that proved the perfect way to reintroduce Star Wars to viewers. Although The Force Awakens had the tricky task of revisiting characters from the classic films while also establishing a new generation of heroes – Force sensitive Rey, runaway Stormtrooper Finn, cocky pilot Poe Dameron – and villains – chiefly brooding Kylo Ren, grandson of Darth Vader – the film got the balance mostly right. A sense of repetition in threat, with the fascistic First Order building yet another planet-killing superweapon for the series, was the film’s main downfall.

8. Star Wars Rebels

If Firefly were set in the Star Wars universe, it might look a lot like this. Initially set in the period between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope, Rebels follows the motley crew of the Ghost, running whatever jobs they can in order to survive, while avoiding the creeping horror of the Empire’s totalitarian rule. The central relationship is between Ezra Bridger, an orphan who discovers a connection to the Force, and Kanan, a former Jedi who escaped Order 66, now loathe to teach Ezra. While the show is unafraid to tackle some complex and mature themes, it also struggles with uneven pacing – particularly in the first season. Still, it’s a series about holding onto or rekindling hope, even in the darkest of times, and that’s something we could all need.

7. Star Wars: The Clone Wars (Series)

After the popularity of the 2D Clone Wars, Lucasfilm pushed ahead with a bigger budget, CGI animated effort. While the movie that served as a glorified pilot for the show proved a stale introduction, the series itself brilliantly explored the scope and complexity of the galaxy-spanning Clone Wars conflict. Helmed by showrunner Dave Filioni, it balanced hundreds of characters and dozens of key events, while bridging the gap between Episodes II and III – and even plugging a few plotholes left by the films themselves. It remains the high point of the Prequel Trilogy era, and proved so popular that it was saved from cancellation twice, purely on the back of its passionate fanbase. With the final season now on Disney+, there’s never been a better time to take in this saga within the saga.

6. Star Wars: A New Hope

Try to look at A New Hope without nostalgic eyes and it’s not aged terribly well. It’s choppy and inconsistently paced, and is plagued with that aforementioned hokey dialogue that came back to haunt Solo decades later. Still, there’s no denying its importance, creatively and culturally. Its characters are iconic, its effects work was pioneering – well before the controversial ‘Special Editions’, Star Wars was still a spectacle – and the music is rightfully legendary. The whole thing is lifted up by its cast, with Carrie Fisher’s tough-as-nails Princess Leia subverting the damsel-in-distress motif being a particular delight. This places higher for its impact on cinematic history and for introducing Star Wars as a whole, more than its independent merits though.

5. Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi

Star Wars was notoriously influenced by George Lucas’ love of the pulp adventure serials of the 1940s, and nowhere is that more apparent than in Return of the Jedi. Raiding a crime lord’s palace! Fighting strange monsters! Swashbuckling on a pirate ship! High-speed chases! A final confrontation with the evil overlord! It’s all given a Star Wars twist, of course, but the roots of everything from Flash Gordon to Dick Tracy are apparent here. Even better, they work really well to this day, helping round out the trilogy by paying homage to sci-fi’s past, while laying the groundwork for its future. Save your too-cool gripes about Ewoks – Jedi is a rousing finale to the Original Trilogy, and a thrill ride from the moment John William’s score kicks in over the opening scroll.

4. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Like Solo, this standalone movie is centred on a lingering question from the Original Trilogy – how did the Rebels get the schematics for the Death Star in the first place? Unlike Solo, there’s a lot more meat on the bones of that question, allowing director Gareth Edwards to deliver one of the most thrilling chapters in Star Wars history. Arguably the first film to truly put the “war” in Star Wars, complete with a ‘storming the beaches’ denouement, Rogue One presents the real cost of the conflict between the Empire and the Rebels in terms of lives lost, all while exploring the moral compromises that are made along the way. Cruelly, the film makes viewers fall in love with its weird and wonderful cast – including wanted criminal Jyn Erso, blind warrior Chirrut Îmwe, and Rebel captain Cassian Andor – before reaching its inevitable conclusion. A bleak but brilliant instalment in the wider saga.

3. The Mandalorian

If the Original Trilogy was a loose homage to the works of Akira Kurosawa (A New Hope being heavily inspired by The Hidden Fortress in particular), then The Mandalorian is Star Wars taking on the spaghetti western genre – and it works incredibly well. Created by Iron Man director Jon Favreau, the show’s focus on the gritty underbelly of the Star Wars universe – bounty hunters, criminals, and smugglers – gives it a feel unlike any previous instalment. A brilliant cast that ranges from Diego Luna as the eponymous bounty hunter to Werner Herzog as the shady client who hires him to retrieve a mysterious package rounds out a rarely seen corner of the galaxy. While the ridiculously cute The Child – better, but erroneously, known as Baby Yoda and, spoiler, the package in question – seems almost cynically designed to spike demand for merch, there’s no taking away from the fact that The Mandalorian is one of the best entries in the entire saga, simultaneously classic and fresh.

2. Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Star Wars has rarely been as daring as The Last Jedi. Not only was the whole movie an epic chase spread over a handful of days, adding to the intensity as the resource-starved Resistance struggled to stay ahead of the First Order, it also threw into disarray fundamental concepts of the entire saga, being bold enough to establish that the Force was more complex than “Jedi good, Sith bad”, or that the Jedi’s rejection of all emotion was just as harmful as the Sith’s weaponised hate. It even threw away many of the rules of action cinema, showing that sometimes the brash, hot-headed rebel doesn’t always have the better idea than the seasoned commander, or that a “heroic sacrifice” can more often be a surrender. Where The Force Awakens was a comfort, playing out for existing fans like a best-of album of familiar classics, Rian Johnson’s next chapter was the difficult second album – at times a jarring departure from expectation, but ultimately a stronger creative effort. Divisive but brilliant, and, by the end, it lit a brief flame of hope that, going forwards, Star Wars would be more nuanced, complex, and diverse in characters and concepts than an endless cycle of good versus evil.

1. Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

You knew this was coming in at number one. While much of Empire’s cachet comes from its darkness, its shocking revelations, and its grim cliffhanger, it’s those very same qualities that helped cement Star Wars in the public consciousness. The original Star Wars was an unexpected phenomenon, but it was Empire’s twists that made the saga a cinematic force to be reckoned with. Imagine that ending in 1980, when there wasn’t rolling internet coverage between sequels – heads almost literally exploded. That the film itself was a brilliantly paced thrill ride that showed real growth for its core cast was the clincher. Still the high point for Star Wars and the reason viewers still care about it today.

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