Rogue One at 10 Is Still the Best Since Jedi (Besides Revenge of the Sith)
Hope. And a really long hallway.
Rogue One opened in theaters on December 16, 2016, which means it turns 10 in about seven weeks. Marvel just wrapped its run of anniversary one-shots with Rogue One: Darth Vader #1, and it feels like the right time to say it plainly. My read is that Rogue One is the best Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi (besides Revenge of the Sith).
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Full disclosure before anyone grabs a lightsaber, Revenge of the Sith is my favorite movie, period, so it was never going to lose a ranking on this site (it has the high ground). Everything else made after 1983 is fair game, though, and Rogue One beats all of it. If you want a refresher first, here's the second official trailer from Star Wars.
What makes Rogue One different from every other Star Wars movie?
It's a war movie first, with no Skywalkers at the center of it, no chosen one and no lightsaber duel to settle things. The heroes are a criminal, a spy, a defected pilot, a reprogrammed Imperial droid and two temple guardians from a moon the Empire has already strip-mined for kyber.
Director Gareth Edwards shot the battles low and messy, like you're crouched in the sand on Scarif with the rebels. The X-wings and AT-ATs are still there, but they feel heavy and dangerous instead of shiny. You get the sense that a rebellion is made of ordinary people making terrible choices for a good reason, and that idea had never been the main event in a Star Wars movie before.
The whole story also came from an unusual place. Visual effects legend John Knoll first came up with it while he was working on Revenge of the Sith, back when a live-action Star Wars TV series was in the works. He pitched it again as a movie after Disney bought Lucasfilm (Wikipedia). A single line from the opening crawl of A New Hope turned into a two-hour film, and it works.
Why does Rogue One feel like a sequel to Revenge of the Sith?
This is where my bias gets to have some fun. Revenge of the Sith ends with Palpatine, Vader and Tarkin on a Star Destroyer bridge, staring at the bare frame of the Death Star. Rogue One picks up that thread about 20 years later, when the station is finally ready to fire and Krennic and Tarkin are fighting over who gets the credit.
The links keep going from there. Jimmy Smits is back as Bail Organa, and Genevieve O'Reilly plays Mon Mothma, a role she first shot for Revenge of the Sith before most of her scenes were cut. Then there's Vader's castle, which sits on Mustafar, the same planet where he lost everything to Obi-Wan. He built his house on the site of the worst day of his life (therapy was not an option in the Empire).
Revenge of the Sith shows how Vader was made, and Rogue One shows what he became. Watching them back to back is a great way to spend an evening.
Why does the ending still hit so hard?
Because Lucasfilm actually let everyone die, and Jyn Erso, Cassian Andor, K-2SO, Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus and Bodhi Rook all give their lives to get the Death Star plans off Scarif. Nobody gets rescued at the last second, and nobody shows up as a Force ghost later (we checked, repeatedly).
What makes it work is that the movie earns every one of those deaths. Chirrut walking through blaster fire repeating "I am one with the Force, and the Force is with me" is one of the best moments in the whole saga. K-2SO going down while holding the door shut gives a droid one of the most human deaths in Star Wars. Jyn and Cassian on the beach, watching the blast come toward them, is quiet and devastating at the same time.
Then the plans end up in Leia's hands, and she says the movie's last word, which is hope, right before A New Hope picks up the story.
Is the hallway scene the best Darth Vader moment ever?
It's close, but my vote still goes to "I hate you!" on Mustafar, even though the hallway is a stunner. In the final minutes, Vader corners a group of rebels in a dark corridor on the Profundity, ignites his lightsaber and cuts through them like they're nothing. It's the first time on screen that he feels like the horror-movie monster the original trilogy always hinted at.
The scene also does something clever, since the rebels are desperate to pass the disk down the line, and you know exactly where it's going. It turns the opening of A New Hope into the ending of a different movie. The Marvel one-shot that just came out leans on that same version of Vader, sending him after kyber on Harreld when Krennic can't close the deal.
How did Andor change the way we watch Rogue One?
It made the movie better in hindsight, because Tony Gilroy, who rewrote parts of Rogue One and led its reshoots in 2016, went on to create Andor for Disney+ (Wikipedia). The first season premiered in September 2022, and the second and final season wrapped in May 2025, leading right up to the start of the movie.
After two seasons with Cassian, his last scenes on Scarif carry a lot more weight, since you know what he gave up and what Mon Mothma and Luthen built around him. If you've seen Andor, Rogue One stops feeling like a side story and starts feeling like the finale of something much bigger.
What doesn't work in Rogue One?
It isn't perfect, since the first act jumps between too many planets too quickly, and it takes a while for the crew to feel like a team. Some of the characters get very little room, especially Bodhi, who deserved more scenes than he got.
The digital Grand Moff Tarkin and young Leia also divided people in 2016, and the effects have aged unevenly. The reshoots are obvious if you go looking for them, since a lot of trailer footage never made it into the final cut. Still, none of that sinks the movie, because the last hour is so strong that the rough edges fade by the time the shield gate comes down.
Where does Rogue One rank among Star Wars movies?
Audiences and critics both liked it a lot. Rogue One made about $1.059 billion worldwide, earned two Oscar nominations for sound mixing and visual effects, and holds an 84% score on Rotten Tomatoes (Wikipedia).
Here's our ranking, and yes, it's biased, with Revenge of the Sith at the top, followed by The Empire Strikes Back, A New Hope, Return of the Jedi and then Rogue One. That makes Rogue One the best Star Wars movie of the Disney era by a wide margin. The Force Awakens is more fun and The Last Jedi takes bigger swings, but Rogue One holds up best on a rewatch.
How should you celebrate the anniversary?
Our pick is a rewatch that runs straight through the fall of the Republic. Start with Revenge of the Sith, add the last three episodes of Andor season 2, then go into Rogue One and finish with A New Hope. You get Vader's birth, his scariest hour and the handoff to the Tantive IV in one long night.
If you're into comics, Marvel is collecting all five anniversary one-shots, from Cassian Andor to Darth Vader, in one book on February 2, 2027.
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (4K Ultra HD)
- Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith (4K Ultra HD)
- Andor Season 1 (4K Ultra HD)
- Star Wars: Rogue One, all five anniversary one-shots (preorder)
Where does Rogue One rank for you, and is Revenge of the Sith your number one too? Tell us in the comments. More Star Wars coverage is right here.
All images are official stills from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story from Lucasfilm.
