Star Wars: Ranking All The Movie Endings From Worst To Best

'Tis the season to be jolly and with a new Star Wars film having just hit the big screen, we're extremely jolly right now.

Rogue One has already proven to be a massive hit and it definitely ranks up there with the best movies in the Star Wars franchise. Its final half hour, in particular, is as exciting and dramatic as it gets. But where would its ending rank among the Star Wars canon?

Star Wars, after all, has featured some absolute humdingers of endings; with dramatic plot twists, turns to the Dark Side, weddings, celebrations, cliffhangers and more. And yes, it probably goes without saying that this article is going to be very spoiler heavy so if you've yet to check out any of the Star Wars movies (and if so, where the hell have you been?), you should probably give this list a miss.

We know there are technically 12 Star Wars movies in the franchise when specials are included but we're strictly sticking with the main eight big screen features for the purposes of this list; from A New Hope in 1977 to Rogue One in 2016.

So which endings were strong with the Force and which ones left us with a bad feeling about this? Here are the endings from all the Star Wars movies ranked from worst to best.

The anticipation ahead of the return of Star Wars for Episode I in 1999 was palpable and the film was never likely to live up to the high expectations. Even so, people expected something a lot better than this tedious mess of a movie, with its over-reliance on CGI effects and a complete lack of character or plot development.

While Episode I is not the worst Star Wars movie (more on that in a second), it does feature the worst ending of any of the films. Some have criticised J.J. Abrams' The Force Awakens for aping the original Star Wars too much but no film is more guilty of that than The Phantom Menace, which features a familiar space battle against the Federation, a climactic lightsaber duel (which is, admittedly, one of the few highlights of the film), and a celebratory ceremony.

Essentially, the ceremony at the end of Phantom Menace is a complete rehash of the medal ceremony at the end of the original Star Wars, with some Return of the Jedi celebrations thrown in for good measure - only with more pointless CGI. Plus, the sight of Padme awarding a gift of friendship to the Gungans only served to infuriate the majority of the audience, given that they (and Jar Jar especially) are the most irritating characters in the Star Wars universe.