The Best Movie Of Each Year From 1925-2025

46. 1980 - The Empire Strikes Back

Honourable Mentions:The Blues Brothers,Raging Bull, The Shining

It is simply far too easy to forget that The Empire Strikes Back is a filmmaking masterpiece. Given all the decades of franchising, merchandising, spin-offs and of course Disney's fumbling attempts at renewing the series over the last decade, there's a tendency to place Star Wars within a different cinematic context - less so a series of films and more a product that has been leveraged to ludicrous success, fixed on a parallel track apart from its peers.

And given that 1980 also saw the release of The Shining and Raging Bull - two masterpieces from Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese - that sense of imposter syndrome could feel even more pronounced. Even so, while the two aforementioned films are among the greatest of the 20th century, it shouldn't be controversial to say that Irvin Kirshner's Star Wars sequel can sit quite happily alongside them.

The original Star Wars was a brilliant, operatic spectacle brought together by technical wizardry and pioneering effects work, but Empire brought those gifts to bear in a more structured and accomplished fashion. Today, it remains a transformational viewing experience - a testament to the immersive qualities of the medium, but one whose iconicity has frequently belied its filmic merit.