It has been almost 50 years since George Lucas first took us to a galaxy far, far away. In that time, the Star Wars universe has introduced several characters who have wormed their way into the fandom’s hearts. Your favorite may be a furry Wookie or a sarcastic droid. Every era has its hotshot pilot or villain (or three) with a British accent. With Star Wars showing no signs of slowing down, it’s clear that more unforgettable characters will soon debut in the sci-fi franchise. But for now, let’s focus on the ones we already know and love.
These are the 50 Greatest Star Wars Characters of All Time.
20. Kylo Ren / Ben Solo (Adam Driver)
Full disclosure: I’m not a huge fan of the Sequel Trilogy. There are elements I enjoy, for sure, but overall, I feel they fell short for a variety of reasons, which are too lengthy to explore here. That being said, one of the high points for me is Kylo Ren.
The details of his origin aren’t my favorite bit of world-building, but that’s not important. Ren is played in an awkward, conflicted manner by Adam Driver. He first appears in The Force Awakens (2015) and continues through the trilogy. His oscillation between terrifying menace and halting vulnerability is shown well enough to keep you paying attention while he’s on screen.
The son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, Ben Solo becomes a pupil of his uncle, Luke Skywalker. Learning of his grandfather’s identity, he becomes disillusioned with the Jedi teaching, and this weakness exposes him to temptation from the Dark Side. He murders his fellow pupils and takes up the name Kylo Ren, after he usurps the leadership of the Knights of Ren.
The thing is, you can tell that he’s really doing all this “bad guy” stuff because of what amounts to peer pressure. He commits heinous acts, (sorry, Dad), but is also kinda looking to fit in. His attempts to turn Rey come off as more of a need for companionship than any power play. It’s an interesting take on the hollow existence of seeking power, but I don’t feel the writing supports its full exploration.
Honestly, it seems like he’s best when, at the end of Rise of Skywalker, he gets to be Ben Solo again.
–Jeff Cram
19. Admiral Ackbar (Timothy D. Rose & Erik Bauersfeld)
“It’s a trap!” Come on, that’s absolutely the first thing you think of when you see a picture of the Mon Calamari commander. That was true even before it became a meme. Despite a screen presence of roughly 3 minutes, the character has become beloved among Star Wars fans. His keen insight, coolness under pressure, and screen presence (puppeteered by Timothy D. Rose and voiced by Erik Bauersfeld originally) meant that he stood out in the swirl of combat in Return of the Jedi. That guaranteed his presence would continue in both the Expanded Universe Star Wars stories and that he would make a return (coming out of retirement) in The Force Awakens. While it appears we’ve seen the end of the Mon Calamari tactician (during The Last Jedi), there’s a treasure trove of background material if you want more of the classic Ackbar style. And no, it’s not a trap.
–Bob Cram
18. Qui-Gon Jinn (Liam Neeson)
The character of Qui-Gon Jinn never fails to produce in me the most paradoxical feelings. On one hand, he’s my favorite thing about The Phantom Menace. Liam Neeson is the only actor to rise above George Lucas’s stilted dialogue and inept directing and turn out not just a competent performance but a captivating one. And to this day, Qui-Gon is honestly the only character from the prequels that I really want to know more about.
And that’s where the paradox comes in. Because Qui-Gon Jinn’s character should never have existed. Obi-Wan never talks about being trained by a guy named Qui-Gon. In fact, he never talks about Qui-Gon at all. We now know that is because, for George Lucas, The Phantom Menace was him riffing like a jazz band and was largely filler, because Anakin’s fall in the third act is really the only part he had figured out.
It’s one of the many great tragedies of the Star Wars franchise: Qui-Gon never should have existed, but somehow managed to rise above all of that to be one of the most beloved, interesting, and mysterious characters that the franchise has ever produced.
–William Dhalgren
17. Cassian Andor (Diego Luna)
Cassian Andor is one of those characters who constantly reminds me that it’s an amazing time to be a Star Wars fan. Can you imagine if we got TV series for the characters of the original film trilogy at the time they were released? I mean, yes, some of it would have been bad, but I would absolutely have loved a Han Solo show. Or a Boba Fett show… you know what, never mind.
We’re talking about Cassian, introduced in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story as the embittered, hardened rebel operative. A man willing to kill a contact just because he’s slowing him down. His dedication to the Rebel cause seems less idealistic and more pragmatic. Over the course of the movie, he’s reminded that you don’t have to compromise yourself and your ideals to further a cause you believe in. (Or more practically, against a cause you oppose). Diego Luna played the character – the first in Star Wars with a Mexican accent – with gravitas and a likeability that kept us on his side, even when he was planning on assassinating Jyn’s father. It would have been great to see more of him (and the entire Rogue One crew), but his character died on the surface of Scarif.
And then, somehow, we got a Disney+ TV show featuring the character and detailing his backstory, from a brutal childhood through his initial brush with the Rebellion and hatred of the Empire. And THEN it turned out to be one of the best Star Wars productions ever. While I still haven’t seen the second season (I’m on it, I just have a backlog, okay?), the first cemented Cassian as one of my favorite characters in the Star Wars canon. A complicated, difficult, angry, loving, and hopeful character, Cassian is actually getting his due. Isn’t it a great time to be a Star Wars fan?
–Bob Cram
16. Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman)
One of the galaxy’s strongest voices in support of democracy, Padmé Amidala’s heroic actions often get ignored in favor of focusing on her doomed romance with Anakin Skywalker. But as Queen of Naboo – at the age of 14 – and later as a senator, Padmé fought to preserve the Republic and was a dissenting voice of reason during the creation of the Galactic Empire. But, of course, it was her forbidden marriage to Anakin that would prove to have tragic consequences for the galaxy. Her importance to the saga cannot be understated – Anakin’s love for Padme and her eventual death are key to Anakin’s complete transformation to Darth Vader. But her compassion, strength, and unwavering belief in democracy are passed down to her children, Luke and Leia. It’s those inherited traits that will eventually save the galaxy from Vader’s rule.
–Romona Comet
15. Grand Admiral Thrawn (Lars Mikkelsen)
Thrawn was our first taste of a completely new antagonist for Luke, Han, Leia, and the gang after Return of the Jedi. While he was originally introduced in Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire (1991), the Grand Admiral has recently been retconned in Disney canon to have initially menaced the ragtag crew of the Ghost in Rebels.
For my money, Thrawn has multiple levels of coolness. He’s of the race of Chiss, so he’s got that blue skin and sweet, glowing red eyes. I mean, if you’re a villain, those have to be on the list of things to add to your evil street cred. More importantly, Thrawn is the rare Star Wars villain that’s a galactic-level threat despite having no Force powers to fall back upon.
His genius-level intellect presents a new issue for the Alliance (and the New Republic), who tend to fly by the seat of its pants and get by on sheer boldness with a healthy dash of luck. Thrawn plays a mean chess game, where a lot of the time the heroes are still playing checkers. He’s the type of guy that has multiple plans going at once, all of them compartmentalized, so once you think you’ve beaten him he reveals how far behind you are. In another Disney universe, he could be an evil Nick Fury.
I was happy to see him realized in the live-action Ahsoka series on Disney+. Here he’s played by the slightly unsettling Lars Mikkelson, who also voiced him in Rebels. I’m interested to see where they go with him, even if it means our heroes’ lives are going to get worse before they get better!
–Jeff Cram
14. Din Djarin / The Mandalorian
Depending on how you felt about the Disney era of Star Wars after the Sequel Trilogy, Din Djarin might just have the broadest shoulders of any hero, having to lift up the whole franchise. Maybe those shoulders belong to Dave Filoni and John Favreau.
The titular character of The Mandalorian (2019), Din is a call-back to the roots of Star Wars. He’s a ronin samurai, a wandering gunslinger, a questing knight. The fact that he’s faceless for most of the episodes makes him a great audience insertion character, even if it’s a bold choice to hide Pedro Pascal’s handsome mug. It’s a choice that’s paid dividends.
Din is an orphan foundling who becomes a Mandalorian. He’s rugged, skilled in a variety of combat types, and a bit laconic. Perfect traits for a loner travelling the galaxy to take in bounties, “warm or cold.” His comfortable routine is interrupted when he takes on a job that leads him to find Baby Yoda, and question everything he’s taken for granted.
This Lone Wolf and Cub dynamic serves to make Pascal yet another franchise’s dad figure, and endears him to all of us. It helps that he’s also a badass, has all kinds of cool weapons, and keeps upgrading his beskar to look more and more like a shining knight…with a jetpack!
While it seems like him and his son, Din Grogu, have settled down on the world of Navarro, I suspect things will change when we get to see them both in action once again in 2026’s unimaginatively titled The Mandalorian and Grogu. Isn’t that redundant, since Grogu IS a Mandalorian? Doesn’t matter, I’ll still see it!
–Jeff Cram
13. Ahsoka Tano (Ashley Eckstein & Rosario Dawson)
Ahsoka is lightning in a bottle when it comes to new characters intermixing with established icons. Dave Filoni’s creation, she first appeared in The Clone Wars film (2008), where she was dropped into the story of Anakin Skywalker. At first, she comes off as annoying and maybe a bit ham-fisted. Us Star Wars grognards may have rolled our eyes – Anakin didn’t have an apprentice!
Slowly, however, through well-thought-out writing and maybe a little emotional manipulation, a lot of us came around. She’s smart, (sometimes a smartass), tough, and willing to speak truth to power, especially when it comes to her master’s darker tendencies or the hypocrisy of the Jedi Council.
It helps that she also has the benefit of long-form storytelling in the what, seven seasons of the Clone Wars? Not that this should take away from her validity as a great character, but hey, if Ponda Baba had this kind of screen time, who knows what merch he’d be on!
It’s a testament to her popularity that her story spans the eras of the Republic, the Empire, and the New Republic in canon. From earning her Jedi General cred in The Clone Wars animated series, working behind the scenes as Fulcrum in Rebels, to finally heading her own series on Disney+, she’s a dynamic and entertaining figure. It seems a lot of folks have recognized our little spunky Troguta for what she is: a worthy addition to the Star Wars pantheon.
–Jeff Cram
12. Sheev Palpatine / Darth Sidious (Ian McDiarmid)
Referencing a line from Escape from New York, Cyberpunk godfather William Gibson had this to say: “I was intrigued by the exchange in one of the opening scenes where the Warden says to Snake, ‘You flew the Gullfire over Leningrad, didn’t you?’ It turns out to be just a throwaway line, but for a moment it worked like the best science fiction, where a casual reference can imply a lot.”
By the time the credits rolled up on Return of the Jedi, all we knew about Emperor Palpatine was that he was basically a dark side wizard who somehow seduced Anakin and turned him into Darth Vader. That’s it. That’s all we knew. And that made him cool. That made him mysterious. And it made him interesting. Sure, his black robes, disfigured face, use of blue lightning, and disdain for lightsabers are all contributing factors to his coolness. But that coolness is amplified by the fact that we don’t know the answer to any of the questions that are begged by what we know.
Why is his face all messed up? Why doesn’t he use a lightsaber? Why does he use lightning? How? Is he a Dark Lord of the Sith too? What is a Dark Lord of the Sith?
The answers to those questions are only interesting as long as they are implied. The second you answer them, the mystery evaporates.
Turns out William Gibson was right.
–William Dhalgren
11. Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew & Joonas Suotamo)
Chewbacca is an absolute beast. The lovable fuzzball is just a delight to watch on screen every time he shows up. He’s the perfect partner in crime for Han Solo and not just because he swore to him a life debt for saving him. He’s not just all brawn either, he’s an expert mechanic, a great pilot, and a helluva shot with his bowcaster. So, in the immortal words of C-3PO, “Let the wookiee win”.
–K. Alvarez
30-21 | 10-1
40 down, 10 to go. Who do you think will make the Top 10 (that may have a cheat)?