The Skywalker saga is complete, the Clone Wars animated series has come to an end (sort of), and one of the best Star Wars stories ever told is between seasons. But Star Wars’ latest foray back to a galaxy far far away actually takes place long before any of the movies and shows we’ve seen so far. Star Wars: The Acolyte is set in the High Republic, and gives us a little bit of insight into the Jedi before they were the aged bureaucratic mess we all know and love. If The Acolyte’s first season made you want to restart the whole saga from the beginning, that should be fairly simple in the streaming age. Disney Plus has every movie and show that’s currently canon (and a few that aren’t).
But what’s the best way to watch it all? After George Lucas released his prequel trilogy, Star Wars fans debated the order in which to devour the series. Now, with three trilogies, a couple spinoff movies, some animated and live-action series, and at least two spinoffs of spinoffs, the “proper” way to watch the Star Wars saga is even more complicated. With all that in mind, here are a few different viewing orders to guide you, whether you’re a longtime fan looking to revisit the films and shows or a newcomer in need of a Star Wars crash course.
Watching Star Wars in chronological order
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This viewing order doesn’t require much explanation. This is how the events of the Star Wars universe happened on the BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin) / ABY (After the Battle of Yavin) timeline. It starts with the earliest events and moves forward in time from there. A couple of these may happen simultaneously, but that’s not our fault.
One thing to note is that the addition of the The Acolyte now makes this a generally unappealing watch order. That show is built almost entirely on our per-existing understanding of the Jedi, which means that a first-time watcher might be entirely lost, and a long time fan might be missing the juicy rewatch details that could add to the show.
- Star Wars: The Acolyte
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
- Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the animated movie)
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the animated series)
- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars: The Bad Batch
- Solo: A Star Wars Story
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
- Star Wars Rebels animated series
- Andor season 1
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Star Wars: A New Hope
- Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
- Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
- The Mandalorian season 1
- The Mandalorian season 2
- The Book of Boba Fett
- The Mandalorian season 3
- Ahsoka season 1
- Star Wars Resistance season 1
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi
- Star Wars Resistance season 2
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Watching Star Wars in Skywalker Saga order
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Taking a bit of inspiration from the internet-famous Ernst Rister order — originally taken from a now-deleted forum post — this list uses A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back as setup for the prequel movies and puts more focus on Luke Skywalker. Viewing the movies and shows this way makes sure that you know where his family came from.
This order diverges from the Skywalker story after both Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, but it gives you much better context for Anakin’s heroics during the Clone Wars and sets up his redemptive moment of siding with Luke over Emperor Palpatine. As you get into the new trilogy, it continues to put Luke at the center.
The trickiest part of this order is the very squishy middle section, which focuses on a few different things, including Mandalore, a couple of Mandalorians, and Ahsoka, for a little while rather than Luke and the Skywalker family — even if they do crop up every now and then.
The Acolyte is also a complicated addition here, but the show has enough thematic resonance that we can do something interesting with it. To keep the emphasis on Luke, we’re putting it between The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, almost like a historical Jedi parable that he reads while on Ahch-To, a reminder of a famous story of a Jedi teacher failing a child and letting them slip to the Dark Side. It helps suggest that Luke has been sitting and stewing on his failures with Ben for years, and that the story of Sol is particularly resonant for him.
- Star Wars: A New Hope
- Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
- Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the animated movie)
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the animated series)
- Star Wars: The Acolyte
- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars: The Bad Batch
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
- Solo: A Star Wars Story
- Star Wars Rebels animated series
- Andor season 1
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
- The Mandalorian season 1
- The Mandalorian season 2
- The Book of Boba Fett
- The Mandalorian season 3
- Ahsoka season 1
- Star Wars Resistance season 1
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Star Wars: The Acolyte
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi
- Star Wars Resistance season 2
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Watching Star Wars in... galaxy-brain order
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We recommend this playlist for those who’ve seen all of Star Wars enough times that they want to mix things up with a truly weird experience. This doesn’t really complement any one character or storyline so much as the series as a whole. This order should help you catch all the small references from one movie or show and connect them to the next — though you’ll probably still miss a few.
In the first few entries, the focus is on the Rebellion. Then, at its lowest moment, we switch sides to Anakin to see how he became Darth Vader. To make Anakin’s story even more interesting, we use The Acolyte as a brief aside, perhaps a story Anakin would have been familiar with, about another Jedi Padawan who was tempted over to the Dark Side. This idea of The Acolyte as a Jedi legend gets amplified when Anakin hears a Dark Side corollary in Revenge of the Sith, when Palpatine tells him about Darth Plagueis, a far more appealing tale, and one that also involves using the Force to create life. This parallel creates a nice little resonant acknowledgement of the ways Star Wars history often rhymes with itself. After that, we see the fall of the Empire in Return of the Jedi, and the aftermath in The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett.
Ahsoka also has a bit of a strange fit in this order, in that she sort of just jumps in and out of the story after her introduction in Clone Wars — which, while narratively odd, does most closely match how she actually operates in the series.
The last weird piece of this order is repositioning the new trilogy with Han as a more central figure. We see his family struggle in The Force Awakens, and then catch up on his backstory with Solo. This order turns Luke giving Han’s lucky dice to Leia in The Last Jedi into a slightly more important moment, and makes it clear that this is Luke attempting to mend some of the pain he brought to Han’s family.
Note: If you want to go all the way on this order, we recommend watching A New Hope up until the planning meeting for the Battle of Yavin. At that point, swap to Rogue One, watch the whole thing, then watch Andor season 1, then go back to the rest of A New Hope. This way, Rogue One plays a little like a heroic flashback for the Rebellion.
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Andor season 1
- Star Wars: A New Hope
- Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
- Star Wars: The Phantom Menace
- Star Wars: Attack of the Clones
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the animated movie)
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (the animated series)
- Star Wars: The Acolyte
- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith
- Star Wars: The Bad Batch
- Obi-Wan Kenobi
- Star Wars Rebels
- Star Wars: Return of the Jedi
- The Mandalorian season 1
- The Book of Boba Fett (first four episodes)
- The Mandalorian season 2
- The Book of Boba Fett (episodes 5, 6, and 7)
- The Mandalorian season 3
- Ahsoka season 1
- Star Wars Resistance season 1
- Star Wars: The Force Awakens
- Solo: A Star Wars Story
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi
- Star Wars Resistance season 2
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
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