A chronological guide to the Star Wars movies
Star Wars is a big part of the Disney Plus offering, and every movie should be on the service by the end of 2020, including The Rise of Skywalker. Many of them are presented in 4K for the first time, too, including the Original Trilogy of Episodes IV-VI. If you’re a big Star Wars fan, then, Disney Plus is arguably worth it, especially with The Mandalorian season 2 on the way later this year.
If you want to marathon the Star Wars movies now that The Rise of Skywalker has been and gone, below we’ll explain how to watch the Star Wars movies in order. You’ve got a few choices: you can watch them in chronological order, as most fans are likely to do, or release order. We’ve also included the Star Wars Machete Order, which proposes throwing out Episode I for narrative reasons, and finally an ultimate order that factors in the TV shows. We’ve also ranked the Star Wars movies based on user scores, in case you want to know what the best Star Wars movie is (according to some people, anyway).
- Watch the Star Wars movies on Disney Plus with a 7-day free trial (or use this sign up if in Australia or New Zealand)
We’ll explain how the various spin-offs fit into the Star Wars timeline, like The Mandalorian, The Clone Wars, and even future Disney Plus Star Wars shows. We’ll keep this as simple as possible, so you can simply watch and enjoy the films. From pod racing to Rey’s confrontation with Palpatine, then, here’s the chronological order of Star Wars movies.
- What is Baby Yoda?
- What’s new with Star Wars in 2020
- The Mandalorian season 2: release date and what we know
Star Wars movies in chronological order
Here is the chronological order of Star Wars movies, with The Phantom Menace being the start of the series, leading up to the now-released The Rise of Skywalker, which completes what’s known as the Skywalker Saga. It’s nice and straightforward.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (set 32 years before A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (set 22 years before A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (set 19 years before A New Hope)
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (set about a decade before A New Hope)
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (ends moments before A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (set three years after A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (set four years after A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (set 34 years after A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (set 34 years after A New Hope
- Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (set 35 years after A New Hope)
Note that we’ve kept this to just the live-action movies, but for reference, The Clone Wars animated series and movie are set between Episodes II and III. Star Wars: Rebels is primarily set between Episodes III and IV. The Mandalorian is set between Episodes VI and VII. The upcoming Obi-Wan series will be set between Episodes III and IV. The upcoming Rogue One spin-off about Cassian Andor is set before that movie, and likely after the prequels. The Resistance animated series is set in the sequel trilogy time period. Scroll down to find an ultimate viewing order with everything in it.
The official Star Wars timeline uses The Battle of Yavin as a center point of events in that universe, which is what the timeline above is based on. For ease, we’ve simply used A New Hope in contextualizing the chronological order of these movies.
Star Wars movies in release order
It’s less likely you’ll want to watch all of the Star Wars movies in release order, given that the prequels are sandwiched between Episodes VI and VII, but here’s the order for reference in case you want to do so. It’s also a shocking reminder that A New Hope is almost 43 years old. Also: more time has now passed between The Phantom Menace’s release and the present day than the time separating A New Hope’s release and the Special Edition re-releases in 1997. We’re turning to dust as we type this.
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977)
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983)
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999)
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005)
- Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
- Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)
- Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019)
Star Wars: The Machete Order explained
The Machete Order, introduced famously by Rod Hilton in 2011, posits an order with no Episode I at all, keeping the focus on Luke’s story. The idea is not to rumble the big twist in The Empire Strikes Back by starting with the prequels. Instead, you start at A New Hope, progress to Empire, then watch two of the three prequels as a kind of flashback to Anakin’s story, before the final confrontation in Return of the Jedi.
It obviously works best if you’ve never seen Star Wars before, and we won’t fight a timeline without The Phantom Menace.
- Episode IV: A New Hope
- Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
- Episode II: Attack of the Clones
- Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
- Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
And if you want to continue the story from there, watch the sequel saga, which is now out in its entirety:
- Episode VII: The Force Awakens
- Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
- Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
The ultimate Star Wars viewing order, including TV shows
When Disney bought Lucasfilm and the rights to Star Wars, it reset the Expanded Universe continuity that had accumulated up until that point. That meant only the Prequel Trilogy, Original Trilogy and the then-airing The Clone Wars CG animated series remained canonical. Since then, Disney has added significantly to the canon, with books, games, comics and more. For ease, below we’ve created a viewing order guide that just includes the movies and TV shows, but will take a long time to watch. We’ll add the newer Disney Plus Star Wars shows to this when we know exactly when they’re set.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (set 32 years before A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (set 22 years before A New Hope)
- The Clone Wars animated series (begins 22 years before A New Hope, ends 19 years before)
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (set 19 years before A New Hope)
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (set about a decade before A New Hope)
- Star Wars: Rebels animated series (set five years before A New Hope, with an epilogue set much later)
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (ends moments before A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (set three years after A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (set four years after A New Hope)
- The Mandalorian (set around nine years after A New Hope)
- Star Wars: Resistance animated series (set 34 years after A New Hope onwards)
- Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (set 34 years after A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (set 34 years after A New Hope)
- Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (set 35 years after A New Hope)
Star Wars movies available to stream now
Not every Star Wars movie is on Disney Plus right now, partly because of the rights situation around existing movies, but most of them are. By the end of 2020, too, they should all be on there. Here’s what you can watch now in the US, and what’ll be added at a later date.
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
- Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi
- Star Wars Episode IX: Rise of Skywalker (likely coming in 2020)
- Solo: A Star Wars Story (coming July 9, 2020 – available now on Netflix US)
It’s worth noting that in Australia, you can stream all the movies above (minus The Rise of Skywalker, of course). Disney Plus launches in the UK in March, and we expect to see the movies on there at launch, but nothing has been guaranteed on that front.
The Star Wars movies, ranked
Most Star Wars fans usually have a pretty firm opinion on which films in the series are good and bad, but in case there’s any ambiguity, we’ve put together a guide ranking the Star Wars movies based on IMDB user scores. Your mileage may vary, and, er, surely no movie featuring the word ‘Younglings’ is better than The Last Jedi or Solo.
We’ll keep updating The Rise of Skywalker score as a consensus solidifies around the movie.
- Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back – 8.7
- Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope – 8.6
- Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi – 8.3
- Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens – 7.9
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – 7.8
- Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith – 7.5
- Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi – 7.0
- Solo: A Star Wars Story – 6.9
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker – 6.9
- Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones – 6.5
- Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace – 6.5
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