How to Watch the Star Wars Movies in Order

Published in

PC Magazine

6 min readMar 2, 2021

With the arrival of Rise of the Skywalker and Solo on Disney+, it’s never been easier to marathon the Star Wars saga. But in what order should you watch? Here are several options for your Star Wars binge.

By Jason Cohen

You can now watch the entirety of the Star Wars franchise with a Disney+ subscription. This includes the original trilogy, the prequel movies, and the sequel series released over the last few years. You can also watch standalone films like Rogue One and Solo.

It’s never been easier to marathon the whole series, but before you press play on the first movie, it’s important to decide your preferred viewing order. Do you start with the original trilogy or the prequel movies? What about the standalone films and the television shows? Here is how to watch Star Wars in order, whichever order you choose.

Theatrical Release Order

The most obvious answer would be theatrical release order, since this is how the movies were presented and what George Lucas intended. It starts with the original trilogy, then takes us back to the prequel movies, before finishing with the sequel films.

Following this order, you get the story of Luke overcoming Darth Vader, followed by Vader’s origin story, then see Rey pick up the legacy Luke left behind. This can get a little awkward if you intend to add the standalone Star Wars films to your watch party. Going by release date, Rogue One and Solo would interrupt the sequel trilogy.

If you’re doing a rewatch and are interested in preserving the storyline of the core movies, just skip these two films. They have no effect on the overarching narrative, anyway. First-timers who want the full experience can certainly watch them in release order, or place the standalone films before or after the sequel trilogy.

If you want to go by release order, your marathon should look like this:

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope

2. Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back

3. Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi

4. Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace

5. Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

6. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

7. Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

8. Rogue One (optional)

9. Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi

10. Solo (optional)

11. Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker

Chronological Order

George Lucas had always intended for the original Star Wars film to be a small part of a much larger story. So just because it was the first film to be released doesn’t mean it’s the start of the story. Instead of going with release order, you can also try chronological order based on when the movies are supposed to take place.

This would mean starting with Episode I, II, and III of the prequel trilogy, before moving to IV, V, VI of the original movies, then finishing with VII, VIII, IX from the sequels. If you’re adding the standalone films, you can fit Rogue One and Solo in between Episodes III and IV, and it should work fine.

However, since this order completely ruins the surprise reveal of Darth Vader in the original films, it is not advisable that anyone should watch these movies for the first time in this order. Watching Star Wars in chronological order is more of a fun experiment for longtime fans to see the series from a new perspective.

If you were to watch the Star Wars films in chronological order, it would look like this:

Machete Order

If you’re still unsure how to watch Star Wars, or you’ve already seen everything both in release and in chronological order, there’s another option to try: Machete Order. This splits the difference and has you watch Episodes II and III in between Episodes V and VI.

You start with A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, but then things get wonky. Just after Luke discovers the truth about Darth Vader, turn to the prequels as a flashback sequence. Watch Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith to witness how a young Anakin Skywalker was consumed by the Dark Side, before finishing with Return of the Jedi.

The Machete Order cuts out Phantom Menace entirely, since almost everything in the movie is self-contained and has no effect on the other prequels. Qui-Gon Jinn plays no importance to the greater story. Midi-chlorians are barely mentioned again. You also basically avoid Jar Jar Binks entirely. It isn’t perfect, though, so watch at your own risk.

If you’re not happy about removing Episode I and are also wondering where the sequel movies fit in here, the original creator of the Machete Order has a suggestion. In an update to his original post, Rod Hilton says to watch Episodes VII, VIII, and IX after the other movies. You can then treat Episode I as an anthology, like Rogue One and Solo.

So if you go by the Machete Order, you would watch the movies as follows:

Disney’s Narrative Timeline

But what about the television shows? Star Wars has become more than just movies, with The Clone Wars, Rebels, Resistance, and The Mandalorian arriving in more recent years. While there’s no specific watch order for all these different pieces of the Star Wars universe, Disney has released an official timeline.

You probably assumed that The Clone Wars animated series takes place between Episodes II and III, but what about the others? According to Disney, Star Wars: Rebels is set before the events of A New Hope. The Mandalorian takes place after Return of the Jedi but before the Star Wars: Resistance animated series.

If you happen to be crazy enough to watch every movie and show in chronological order (and at this point in our COVID-19 quarantine, who isn’t?) here’s what that would look like:

Everything to Come

Even after the release of the last big film, Disney plans to continue releasing additional Star Wars content on Disney+ for the foreseeable future. It’s hard to say when any of these productions will be available to stream, or even which announced projects will make it that far, but here’s what Disney announced earlier this month:

A Droid Story is an animated series starring C-3PO and R2-D2.
The Acolyte takes place hundreds of years before The Phantom Menace.
Ahsoka stars Rosario Dawson and take place at the same time as The Mandalorian.
Andor stars Diego Luna and Alan Tudyk in a prequel to Rogue One.
The Bad Batch spins out of The Clone Wars and takes place after Revenge of the Sith.
The Book of Boba Fett is a spinoff of The Mandalorian.
Lando centers around the the titular smuggler.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, with Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen, is set 10 years after Revenge of the Sith.
Rangers of the New Republic is another spinoff of The Mandalorian.
Rogue Squadron, from director Patty Jenkins, will be released Christmas 2023.
Star Wars: Visions is a series of animated shorts, likely from different point of time.

Best Star Wars Games

If you’re looking for even more Star Wars goodness to entertain yourself, consider some of the best video games from a galaxy far, far away.

Originally published at https://www.pcmag.com.