14 Most Powerful Characters In Star Wars Movies

2. Emperor Palpatine / Darth Sidious

How could the guy who infamously screeched "Unlimited powaaaah!" not be near the very top of the list? Palpatine/Sidious is powerful in every sense of the word, both as a ruthless politician hiding in plain sight, and as a brutal Sith Lord who successfully lured Anakin to the Dark Side.

Sidious was, of course, trained by Darth Plagueis to become the most powerful Sith Lord of all time, and there's perhaps no greater proof of his combat skill than him slaughtering three Jedi Masters within five seconds in Revenge of the Sith.

Sidious was also an extremely powerful user of Force lightning, which he later used to incapacitate Luke and mortally wound Darth Vader. However, it was arguably his clever manoeuvring to eliminate the Jedi order and position himself as the Emperor of the Galactic Empire that truly proved the full, horrifying reach of his power as a political tyrant.

Simply, the new Star Wars movies are going to struggle to make Snoke as terrific a tactician as Sidious, because the man's villainy spans almost the entirety of the series' cinematic lore.