Star Wars shows, ranked
There are officially five live-action Star Wars shows, following the first season of Ahsoka starring Rosario Dawson. Ahsoka premiered on Disney+ in August and ran for eight episodes through October. Now that Ahsoka season 1 is over, we updated our ranking of the live-action Star Wars shows to include Ahsoka.
It’s pretty much impossible to have predicted just how huge Star Wars would become when the first film hit theaters in 1977. The movie was an instant blockbuster hit, surprising creator George Lucas and impressing moviegoers across the country. The original trilogy catapulted actors to fame, including star Mark Hamill who portrayed the one and only Luke Skywalker. It’s wild to think of Star Wars as anything but a complete phenomenon at this point, with multiple movie trilogies, animated and live-action series, comics, and much more.
Coming off the success of the sequel movie trilogy, Disney decided to up the ante by creating the first-ever live-action Star Wars show — on their very own streaming service, Disney+. As many of our readers will remember, the platform debuted on Nov. 12, 2019, with a brand-new show for subscribers to watch, The Mandalorian. The series stars Pedro Pascal as the titular character alongside the cutest little creature Star Wars had ever seen, Grogu, following their adventures together. Just like the original Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian saw instant success after its premiere.
And now, going on four years later, Disney has added a handful of additional live-action Star Wars shows to their platform and doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. Even if that might be a wise choice… There are at least a few more Star Wars shows in the works, including The Acolyte and Skeleton Crew.
Let’s get the ranking of the live-action Star Wars shows started with the worst show we’ve seen so far, The Book of Boba Fett.
5. The Book of Boba Fett
After the success of The Mandalorian, it was a no-brainer for Disney to create an additional live-action Star Wars series. And because the characters Boba Fett and Fennec Shand had already made appearances in The Mandalorian and were generally well-liked by viewers, it seemed like a move that made sense at the time. The Book of Boba Fett debuted on Disney+ in Dec. 2021, and the show follows the lives of Fett and Shand after taking over Jabba the Hutt’s throne.
The series takes place right after the conclusion of The Mandalorian season 2, as fans got to see Boba Fett kill Bib Fortuna and take over the palace on Tatooine in the post-credits scene. That scene was so awesome and got viewers excited for the spinoff. But somewhere in the writing process for The Book of Boba Fett, things went south.
Right off the bat, the first few episodes of The Book of Boba Fett drag on. There’s little to nothing that entertaining to pull viewers into the series, although I do love the two leads. We get fun cameos from famous celebrities as we do in The Mandalorian, but that’s not enough to make a great show. And it even seems like the writers ran out of ideas midway through, as they basically turned the series into The Mandalorian season 2.5.
It’s almost as if the writers knew viewers would get bored in The Book of Boba Fett, so they added the Mando and Grogu storyline to keep us interested. That’s just silly, in my opinion. Although it’s great to see the beloved characters, why couldn’t they just do something different to make the spinoff stand out? If you haven’t watched Boba Fett, I’d recommend just skipping it and reading about Mando and Grogu’s scenes ahead of The Mandalorian season 3 here.
4. Obi-Wan Kenobi
There was just so much potential with Obi-Wan Kenobi. When it was announced that both Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen would reprise their roles in the Disney+ series, I was ecstatic. Star Wars fans who grew up with the prequel movie trilogy were so happy they’d be seeing the actors back on their screens, and that excitement might’ve clouded our judgment just a bit. At least, that happened to me. Going into Obi-Wan Kenobi, my expectations were a little too high, and that only led to disappointment.
Obi-Wan Kenobi premiered on Disney+ in May 2022. It takes place 10 years after the events of Revenge of the Sith, following the titular character as he agrees to rescue a kidnapped Princess Leia from the Empire. McGregor is a great actor, no doubt, but even he can’t save poor dialogue and other missteps in the first few episodes. I really dislike the premiere, but fortunately, the show gets a little better from there.
Though the series does a great job telling a character-driven story, there are just some plot points that are hard to believe, even for Star Wars, and there’s really not too much to dig into beyond the highly-anticipated reunion between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader. That’s the main reason everyone tuned in, right? Their final fight is awesome, but is it worth watching a full show for?
If you love the prequel movie trilogy, you might as well watch Obi-Wan Kenobi. It’s not the strongest show, but it’s also not straight-up bad. Or, to save time, you could just check out this handy compilation of all the Obi-Wan and Vader scenes from the show.
3. Ahsoka
Outside of The Mandalorian, Ahsoka is probably the most hyped of the Star Wars shows, but did it live up to the hype? The series premiered on Disney+ on Aug. 23, and it ran for eight episodes through Oct. 3.
The series stars Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano,a former Jedi trying to find her place in the world. A new mystery leads Ahsoka on a wild chase.
Natasha Liu Bordizzo, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Ray Stevenson, Ivanna Sakhno, Diana Lee Inosanto, David Tennant, Eman Esfandi, Evan Whitten, Genevieve O’Reilly, Hayden Christensen, Ariana Greenblatt, Lars Mikkelsen, and Anthony Daniels also star in Ahsoka.
Ahsoka, in my opinion, is in a tier of its own compared to the other Star Wars shows. It’s definitely not on the bottom tier with The Book of Boba Fett and Obi-Wan Kenobi, but it’s not in that top tier with The Mandalorian and Andor either. It’s right in the middle, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Is it a good thing? We’ll see in time!
The good news is that it doesn’t look like Ahsoka is ending anytime soon. There are reports that Ahsoka season 2 is happening on Disney+, but it has not been officially announced.
2. The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian was truly a game-changer for Star Wars when the first season premiered in 2019. Just when you thought the franchise had done it all, Disney decided it was time for live-action shows. Of course, there had been many Star Wars series created before The Mandalorian, starting back in the 1980s, but all animated. There’s nothing wrong with animation, but creating a live-action show definitely attracted a bigger audience, and the viewership numbers prove it.
The first season of The Mandalorian stars Din Djarin, a bounty hunter tasked with finding a creature called “The Child,” later known as Grogu and dubbed “Baby Yoda” by Star Wars fans. While traveling across different planets with his various tasks, we see the titular character form a bond with his bounty, and he decides he’s going to protect him. It was no surprise that the series was renewed for a second season later that year.
The Mandalorian definitely started as a great show, combining elements of action, emotion, and humor. The action sequences are really well done, and Pascal gives a fantastic performance even from underneath a helmet in the earlier seasons. (He’s since confirmed he now only voices the character.) There are welcome celeb cameos throughout the show, though I’d argue there are too many cameos in the third season.
Though many call Luke Skywalker’s appearance in The Mandalorian season 2 fan service, I love it. It becomes too much in The Book of Boba Fett, sure, but the season 2 finale is a huge high point of the series for me.
The Mandalorian season 3, unfortunately, takes a dip in quality. Because we already know going into it that Din Djarin and Grogu were reunited in The Book of Boba Fett, the stakes are very, very low. It would work much better if the two characters are still apart at the start of the season. Their reunion would be much more rewarding in The Mandalorian season 3.
By the third season, the plot is repetitive and a bit stale, sadly. Jon Favreau has confirmed a fourth season in the works, so we’ll see how that one goes. I have to admit that I don’t have high hopes, though. Considering how solid the first two seasons are, however, The Mandalorian is still number two on this list.
1. Andor
When looking at the four Star Wars live-action series as a collection, Andor sometimes feels like an outlier. Yes, The Mandalorian started off strong, and yes, there are solid moments in Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Book of Boba Fett, but the quality of Andor is just on another level.
The series debuted in Sept. 2022, right in the midst of my Star Wars fatigue, and it took me some time to even watch it. The Star Wars franchise is oversaturated to me now, sadly, so I wasn’t even excited about a new show. But after seeing the glowing reviews for Andor, I finally had to check it out. And thank goodness I did! It’s fantastic.
Andor takes place in the years leading up to the events of Rogue One and A New Hope, following Rebel spy Cassian Andor. I should’ve known Andor had a ton of potential considering how great and different Rogue One is, which follows the same character. Andor truly feels like a spinoff; yes, it takes place in the same world and features the current events of the galaxy, but it’s such a side story of its own. It doesn’t feel like it’s something Disney is using to get you to watch more shows. It takes risks, is written so well, and is such a departure from the live-action Star Wars series before it.
The show gets dark, and though it’s rated TV-14 like the other live-action Star Wars shows, it definitely deals with more mature topics and leans heavily into the politics and wrongdoings of the Empire. It gives us a raw look into how the Rebel Alliance feels and why they make the choices that they do. Sure, we can understand this from previous Star Wars shows and movies, but Andor gives us an almost uncensored look at it all. This is something I really didn’t expect from the franchise.
Andor season 2 will be coming out next summer in August 2024. Fingers crossed it’s just as good as the first season!