Star Wars: EVERY Movie & TV Show Ranked Worst To Best

As stunning and brilliant and just plain awesome as A New Hope is, sequel The Empire Strikes Back takes the cake. This is the obvious choice amongst the majority of Star Wars fans, and it's mostly to do with mystery and plot twists.

Who could forget Darth Vader telling Luke he's his father? Who could ever forget Han Solo being frozen in carbonite? And who could ever forget the sequences that take place on Hoth? The AT-ATs, the palpable tension of the fighting, the fear that the big Yeti-thing is going to kill Luke - all of this is just a microcosm of what makes Empire so good.

The best part is the film's ability to shift tone. Whilst it starts quick, tense and violent, it slows down in the second half as Luke ventures to Dogabah to meet Yoda. Every part of the swamp planet arc is masterful. Yoda is funny but wise, Luke gets a chance to prove how strong he is, and the audience gets to uncover some of the secrets of the galaxy's past.

Like Rogue One, though, the true power is its unconventional plot. The good guys lose, Luke is badly injured and shook by Vader's revelation, and Han is gone. The film ends on a mostly sombre note, and then George Lucas took three years to clear everything up.

That's a cliffhanger - and Star Wars - at its finest.