55 Best Star Wars Characters Ranked by Popularity
George Lucas’ Star Wars franchise is a pillar of modern science-fiction. What started out as a relatively ambitious space opera project became one of the most lucrative and popular franchises in history. Being present for several decades now, Star Wars has raised multiple generations of fans and it still remains as one of the best fictional universes ever created with the best fictional characters.
In order to honor that legacy, we at Fiction Horizon have decided to compose a list of the 55 best Star Wars characters as they have appeared throughout the Expanded Universe (the pre- and post-Disney one). These characters will be ordered from 55th to 1st place, using their popularity and general excellence in terms of character development as the main criteria. Enjoy!
List of Best Star Wars Characters
55. Admiral Ackbar
Debut: The Return of the Jedi
Played By: Tim Rose
We start off our list of best Star Wars characters with a member of the Mon Calamari amphibious species. General Ackbar was the foremost military commander of the Rebel Alliance who led major combat operations against the evil Galactic Empire. He is known for the catchphrase: “It’s a trap!”.
54. Greedo
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Paul Blake, Maria De Aragon, Larry Ward
Greedo is a Rhodian bounty hunter in the service of Jabba the Hutt; although no one takes him too seriously, he believes himself to be an expert and infallible big shot. In Mos Eisley’s cantina, in A New Hope, he attempts to shoot Han Solo but is killed by the smuggler.
53. Supreme Leader Snoke
Debut: The Force Awakens
Played By: Andy Serkis
Snoke was created by Palpatine shortly after the Battle of Endor, he became the supreme leader of the First Order until his death. He is assassinated by his apprentice Kylo Ren who takes back his title. It is then revealed that he is a clone created by Sith Emperor Palpatine and among the most powerful sith of all time.
52. Darth Nihilus
Debut: Knights of the Old Republic II – The Sith Lords
Played By: None
Next on our list of best Star Wars characters is Darth Nihilus. Darth Nihilus was a human Sith Lord who played a pivotal role in eliminating the Jedi in 3951 BBY. He had the unique ability to absorb the power from all beings or objects, which led to the fact that he robbed or destroyed not only living beings but entire planets of their power, such as Katarr, a colony of the Miraluka.
51. Starkiller / Galen Marek
Debut: Soulcalibur IV
Played By: Sam Witwer
Galen Marek, also known by the alias Starkiller, was the son of the Jedi knight Kento and was trained by Darth Vader to be his secret apprentice who would, ultimately, help him take down the Emperor. After the Sith Lord killed Galen’s father on Kashyyyk, Vader took the little boy with him and trained him, ruthlessly and harshly, in the arts of the Dark Side of the Force.
50. Revan
Debut: Knights of the Old Republic
Played By: Rino Romano
Revan was a Jedi in the time of the Galactic Republic. He played a key role in the Mandalorian Wars, in which he – through the movement of revanchists he founded – was able to decide in favor of the Republic, but against the will of the Order. After defeating the Mandalorians and destroying Malachor V, he was often close to succumbing to the temptations of the Dark Side.
49. The Client
Debut: The Mandalorian
Played By: Werner Herzog
The Client is a mysterious, nameless agent of the Imperial Remnant. He hires the Mandalorian, as well as many other bounty hunters, to retrieve the Child in the name of his superior, Moff Gideon. The Client never says why he wants the Child at all costs, but orders his colleague, Dr. Pershing, to “extract the necessary material” from him.
The Mandalorian delivers the Child to the Client, but later changes his mind and saves him. The Client conspires to find the Mandalorian and the Child, but later the Mandalorian returns to him, and the Client is shot and killed by stormtroopers on Gideon’s orders.
48. Captain Rex
Debut: The Clone Wars
Played By: Dee Bradley Baker
Cloned from Jango Fett, he is a Clone trooper captain in command of the 501st Legion of the Republic Army, serving Anakin Skywalker and Ahsoka Tano, during the Clone Wars.
After the birth of the Galactic Empire, he is probably the only clone, along with Wolffe and Gregor, not to have executed Order 66 after removing the chip that would have led him to assassinate the Jedi. He later joins a group of rebels.
47. Paz Vizsla
Debut: The Mandalorian
Played By: Tait Fletcher, Jon Favreau
Paz Vizsla is one of the warriors of the Mandalorian tribe on Nevarro. Strong and physically imposing, he is a heavy infantry fighter. He appears in “Chapter 3: The Sin”, where he initially argues with the Mandalorian over working with the Empire, but later comes to his aid when the Mandalorian is attacked.
46. Mara Jade
Debut: Heir to the Empire
Played By: None
Our next entry on the list of best Star Wars characters is Mara Jade. Mara Jade was a capable woman. She in her life had been a Hand of the Emperor, a smuggler, and later a Jedi Master. As Palpatine’s servant, Mara she fulfilled the Emperor’s will, killing as many people as required.
After Palpatine’s death, Mara received one last order, regarding the death of Luke Skywalker, but instead of killing him, she had to ally with him to defeat the crazed clone of Jedi Master Joruus C’baoth. Jade later teamed up with Talon Karrde, becoming one of his best agents. After a period of separation, Mara and Luke fell in love, getting married in 19 ABY. She made it onto our list of most powerful female Jedi.
45. Rey
Debut: The Force Awakens
Played By: Daisy Ridley
Rey is introduced as a scavenger who was abandoned on the planet Jakku when she was a child. She later becomes involved in the Resistance conflict with the First Order. Mighty with the Force, Rey trains to be a Jedi under Luke Skywalker and General Leia and faces adversaries such as Kylo Ren, Supreme Leader Snoke, and Emperor Palpatine.
44. Darth Bane
Debut: Star Wars: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction
Played By: None
Darth Bane is a dark lord of the Sith who lived a thousand years before the events of the Prequel Trilogy. Left the last member of the group due to infighting between the Sith and oppression of the Jedi, Darth Bane instituted the “rule of two”, stating that at any one time there would be only two Sith, a master, and an apprentice.
With his death, the Jedi believed they had eliminated the Sith for good, but his pupil secretly continued his work, initiating a long-term process to overthrow the Republic and the Jedi.
43. Qi’ra
Debut: Solo: A Star Wars Story
Played By: Emilia Clarke
As a practitioner of Teräs Käsi, she is Han Solo’s childhood best friend and the first love of the planet Corellia. The couple live on the streets before she was captured and escaped the planet. Qi’ra then becomes a lieutenant in the Crimson Dawn crime syndicate until she takes control of the organization and becomes its leader during the Galactic Civil War.
42. Darth Plagueis
Debut: Star Wars: Darth Plagueis
Played By: None
Darth Plagueis is a dark lord of the Sith, master of Darth Sidious killed in his sleep by his pupil. He is mentioned by Palpatine in Revenge of the Sith in his attempt to lure Anakin Skywalker to the dark side, calling him a Sith so powerful that he was able to directly influence midi-chlorins and with the power to evade even death. The Expanded Universe novel Star Wars: Darth Plagueis expands the character’s story and his relationship with Darth Sidious.
41. Moff Gideon
Debut: The Mandalorian
Played By: Giancarlo Esposito
Gideon is a former officer of the Security Bureau of the fallen Galactic Empire who aims to capture Grogu, an alien about 50 years old of the same species as Yoda, who until the fifth episode of the second season is defined only as “The Child”, at any cost. He clashes with Mando on several occasions.
40. Ezra Bridger
Debut: Star Wars Rebels
Played By: Taylor Gray
Ezra Bridger was a 14-year-old orphan boy who grew up on the planet Lothal. He was very Force-sensitive, something that the Jedi Kanan Jarrus, who had survived Order 66, noticed right away when they first met. Ezra became part of Kanan’s crew and became his Padawan. As a powerful member of a rebel cell, the Empire quickly noticed him and hired an inquisitor who specialized in Jedi hunting to target him and his master.
39. Asajj Ventress
Debut: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Played By: Grey DeLisle, Nika Futterman
In all versions of his story, Asajj appears as Count Dooku’s agent during the clone wars characterized by fighting with two curved-hilted lightsabers and a tough opponent for Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
38. Lando Calrissian
Debut: The Empire Strikes Back
Played By: Billy Dee Williams, Donald Glover
Our next entry on the list of best Star Wars characters is Lando Calrissian. He became administrator of Cloud City, a mining colony that extracts and markets gas from Tibana to the planet Bespin. Blackmailed by Darth Vader, he helps trap Han Solo and Princess Leia in exchange for a promise from the Empire not to go about its more or less legal affairs. Realizing, a little late, how much he has been duped by Vader, he helps Leia escape and joins the Rebel Alliance.
37. Cal Kestis
Debut: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order
Played By: Cameron Monaghan
Cal Kestis, the protagonist of the above-mentioned video game, is a former Padawan of Jedi Jaro Tapal who survived Order 66 decreed by Emperor Palpatine. Exiled on the planet Bracca, he works for the Scrap Guild and notably meets Prauf. Later, he joins a small group of resistance fighters in fighting the Empire, eventually meeting even Saw Gerrera.
36. Finn
Debut: The Force Awakens
Played By: John Boyega
He is originally introduced as a Stormtrooper soldier in the service of the First Order (being known by the code name FN-2187). But, after witnessing the horrible acts of his leaders and witnessing the death of a squadmate, he joins “The Resistance” in the course of the film, when meeting the rebel pilot Poe Dameron, who uses the letters of his code name ended up baptizing him as Finn.
35. Saw Gerrera
Debut: The Clone Wars
Played By: Forest Whitaker
Saw Gerrera is a member of the Onderon rebels, who fights to regain control of the planet from the separatists during the clone wars. He appears as a war-branded veteran who went on to fight leading a small group of rebels called the Partisans, but so extremist that he was marginalized by the rest of the rebellion.
He is the mentor of young Jyn Erso, having saved her as a child when her father Galen was taken into custody by the Empire and her mother killed. In Jedha City, he reveals to Jyn that Galen has engineered a flaw in the main reactor of the Death Star, and is killed in the subsequent destruction of the city by the orbiting station.
34. Cassian Andor
Debut: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Played By: Diego Luna
Cassian Andor is an intelligence officer of the Rebel Alliance. In Rogue One, he takes part in the mission to retrieve the plans of the Death Star from the imperial base in Scarif. After transmitting the plans to the rebel forces in orbit, Andor and his companions are killed in the destruction of the planet by the orbiting station.
33. K-2SO
Debut: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Played By: Alan Tudyk
K-2SO is an Imperial droid stolen and reprogrammed by the Rebel Alliance and Cassian Andor’s co-pilot and companion. His appearance allows him to covertly infiltrate enemy ranks on spy missions. He has a tendency to express his thoughts in a cheeky, indelicate, and blunt manner, and often sports black and sarcastic humor.
During the mission to recover the Death Star data on Scarif in Rogue One, K-2SO is destroyed to protect Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor from stormtroopers.
32. Maz Kanata
Debut: The Force Awakens
Played By: Lupita Nyong’o
She is a very small humanoid, with orange skin and a particularly wrinkled round face. Over 1,000 years old, Maz is an inveterate pirate and smuggler. She owns and manages a tavern housed in a castle on the planet Takodana.
31. BB-8
Debut: A Force Awakens
Played By: Bill Hader, Ben Schwartz
BB-8 is a droid. It has a half-sphere head that sits on another larger sphere that it rolls on. BB-8 is white with some gray and orange parts on its body as well as a black eyepiece. He’s the droid that flies with Poe Dameron on his X-wing.
30. Plo Koon
Debut: The Phantom Menace
Played By: Alan Ruscoe, Matt Sloan
Plo Koon was a Jedi Master of Kel Dor heritage who served as a member of the High Council during the Galactic Republic’s last years. He served as a respected Jedi general during the Clone Wars, a pangalactic conflict between the republic and its dissident state, the Confederacy of Independent Systems. He was killed during the execution of Order 66.
29. Grand Moff Tarkin
Debut: Star Wars
Played By: Peter Cushing
Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin was the most unforgiving of the rulers of the Galactic Empire. He started during the Clone Wars in the service of the Galactic Republic and quickly seeing the approach of the fall he allied himself with Palpatine.
The new emperor bestowed upon him a title and power beyond the mind of any being. He died because of his own stubbornness when he did not escape the first Death Star. He exploded along with the space station in his “moment of triumph”.
28. Din Djarin / The Mandalorian
Debut: The Mandalorian
Played By: Pedro Pascal
The Mandalorian, sometimes called Mando, whose real name is Din Djarin, is presented as a member of the Bounty Hunters Guild and one of the last of his creed. He is a “foundling”, an orphan who was rescued at a young age by the Mandalorians. He is the adoptive father of Grogu, whom he initially has to give over to the Client but later becomes drawn to him and saves him.
27. C-3PO
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Anthony Daniels
He is a protocol droid with an anthropomorphic appearance and hails from the planet Tatooine, where he was assembled by the young Anakin Skywalker from discarded pieces. He knows more than six million forms of communication; this skill will make him extremely useful to his various masters.
Initially, when Anakin leaves Tatooine along with Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn, C-3PO is out of cover; later, he is given a gray cover which, later on, is replaced by a gold one.
26. Jar Jar Binks
Debut: The Phantom Menace
Played By: Ahmed Best
Like all Gungans, he speaks with a strange and characteristic accent. Exiled from his own people due to his clumsiness, he joins the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi, sent to Naboo to settle a dispute.
He quickly becomes a general of the Great Gungan Army at the Battle of Naboo, and later a representative of his people in the Galactic Senate. He contributes a lot, both for good and for bad, to keeping the Galactic Republic stable.
25. Jyn Erso
Debut: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Played By: Felicity Jones
Born at the beginning of the Clone Wars, Jyn spent the early part of her life with Galen, her father, and Lyra Erso, her mother. Jyn herself met Captain Cassian Andor in command of the Alliance. Cassian and Jyn set out for Jedha to search for Saw, who knows the location of the place where Galen, Jyn’s father, was.
They set off for Jedha with an Imperial security droid named K-2SO. When they arrive, Jyn scolds Saw for how terrible he was to her, while Cassian asks Bodhi Rook, a defected Imperial pilot, for the location of Galen. Jyn dies in Scarif after being hit by the shock wave that causes the destruction of an imperial base found on the planet due to a ray of the Death Star.
24. Ki-Adi-Mundi
Debut: The Phantom Menace
Played By: Silas Carson
Ki-Adi-Mundi was a Cerean Jedi member of the Jedi council in the Prequel Trilogy and The Clone Wars. He participates in the clone wars and is killed on Mygeeto by his clone troopers after Order 66 is issued.
23. Jabba the Hutt
![30 Best Jabba the Hutt Quotes from Star Wars [2021 Updated]](https://fictionhorizon.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/jabba1.jpg)
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Larry Ward
Our next entry on the list of best Star Wars character is known to everybody, Jabba the Hutt. Jabba’s role in the series is primarily antagonistic: he is in fact a Hutt gangster of around 600, who uses a large following of criminals, bounty hunters, smugglers, murderers, and bodyguards to manage his criminal empire.
In his palace on the desert planet, Tatooine, keeps many entertainers, slaves, droids, and alien creatures at his disposal. Jabba has a grim sense of humor, a belligerent laugh, an insatiable appetite, and a penchant for gambling, slavery, and torture.
22. Chewbacca
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Peter Mayhew, Joonas Suotamo
Legendary Wookiee warrior and co-pilot of the Millennium Falcon alongside legendary smuggler Han Solo, Chewbacca is part of the core of rebels who have restored freedom to the galaxy. Known for getting angry and his crossbow precision very easily, Chewbacca also has a big heart and shows unwavering loyalty to his friends.
21. Jango Fett
Debut: Attack of the Clones
Played By: Temuera Morrison
Jango Fett is the father of Boba Fett, Han Solo’s antagonist bounty hunter who appeared in the Original Trilogy. Considered the best bounty hunter in the galaxy, during the last years of the Republic he was chosen by the mysterious Darth Tyranus in order to serve as the genetic model for the creation of a clone army of the Galactic Republic.
Jango is also the “father” of the clone Boba Fett, who will try to avenge him after witnessing his death at the hands of the Jedi Mace Windu.
20. Count Dooku
Debut: Attack of the Clones
Played By: Christopher Lee
Trained by Yoda as a Padawan apprentice, he is considered one of the greatest Jedi of all time. After the death of his former apprentice, Qui-Gon Jinn, he leaves the Order and claims his noble title of Count of Serenno.
Shortly thereafter, the former Jedi Master is seduced by Darth Sidious into the dark side of the Force, becoming his second apprentice and taking the name of Darth Tyranus. As the leader and creator of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, he was the instigator of the Clone Wars.
19. General Grievous
Debut: Star Wars: Clone Wars
Played By: Matthew Wood
Grievous, also known as General Grievous, whose real name is Qymaen Jai Sheelal, is one of the principal antagonists of the Prequel Trilogy, a powerful lightsaber-wielding general of the Droid Army.
Among the most recurring antagonists of the saga, he is the supreme general of the Droid Army of the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars and is trained by Count Dooku in all forms of lightsaber combat in order to ensure the destruction of the Jedi.
18. Boba Fett
Debut: The Star Wars Holiday Special
Played By: Jeremy Bulloch, Temuera Morrison
Boba Fett is the clone of Jango Fett who kept him with him as his son, among the thousands of other clones made in his image on the planet Kamino and who will fight in the subsequent Clone Wars. As an adult, Boba is a formidable bounty hunter who is known for his great skill in stalking his prey.
He has often worked for the gangster Jabba the Hutt who asks him to capture Han Solo, something done thanks to his association with Darth Vader during Episode V on the planet Bespin. In Episode VI, he disappears on Tatooine, swallowed by a Sarlacc. Boba Fett reappears in The Mandalorian.
17. Ben Solo / Kylo Ren
Debut: The Force Awakens
Played By: Adam Driver
Kylo Ren is the name chosen by Ben Solo, the only child of the Original Trilogy characters Han Solo and Leia Organa. Though trained by his uncle Luke Skywalker as a Jedi, he has been seduced by the dark side of the Force due to the influence of Supreme Leader Snoke and aspires to be as powerful as his grandfather, the Sith Lord Darth Vader.
Ren is also the leader of the Knights of Ren, as well as a commander and later Supreme Leader of the First Order, an organization born from the ashes of the Galactic Empire.
16. Poe Dameron
Debut: The Force Awakens
Played By: Oscar Isaac
Poe Dameron is the best pilot of the Resistance, one of Princess Leia’s most trusted men, and one of the protagonists of the Sequel Trilogy. He is impulsive and impetuous and often gets himself into dangerous situations.
In The Force Awakens, he retrieves the coordinates from Lor San Tekka to reach Luke Skywalker, but is captured by the First Order and manages to save the data in the memory of his droid BB-8. He later escapes thanks to Finn’s complicity but is presumed dead in the crash of their ship on Jakku. He later reappears in the Resistance headquarters.
In The Last Jedi, Poe embarks on a secret mission to disable the First Order locator, which fails. In The Rise of Skywalker, Leila, before dying, names Poe general of the Resistance; in this capacity, he and Finn, and Rey lead the battle against Palpatine.
15. Padmé Amidala
Debut: The Phantom Menace
Played By: Natalie Portman
We’re slowly climbing up the list of our best Star Wars characters so it makes sense that you see Padmé in our top 15! Padmé is one of the most important characters within the Prequel Trilogy, being the wife of the protagonist of the entire saga, the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, and, consequently, the mother of Luke Skywalker and Leila Organa.
She is the daughter of the nobles of Naboo Ruwee Naberrie and Jobal Thule, she has an older sister, Sola Naberrie, and she is the aunt of her daughters, Ryoo and Pooja Janren. During her lifetime, she served as the Queen of Naboo and a Senator from the planet.
14. Mace Windu
Debut: The Phantom Menace
Played By: Samuel L. Jackson
Like Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu is considered one of the greatest Jedi in the history of the Order. Hailing from the planet Haruun Kal, he immediately opposes training young Anakin Skywalker, worried about his nebulous future. He fought valiantly as a general during the Clone Wars, which caused him to question his strongest beliefs.
He was one of the first members of the Jedi Council to fall victim to Chancellor Palpatine, who was actually revealed to be Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith. His skill and wisdom were legendary, as was his swordsmanship.
13. Darth Maul
Debut: The Phantom Menace
Played By: Ray Park
Of Dathomirian race, as a child, he was taken into custody by Darth Sidious. In a short time, Maul became his apprentice and Dark Lord of the Sith. During his first mission on Naboo, he collides with the two Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi.
After killing Qui-Gon, he fights with his padawan apprentice who, however, manages to mutilate the Sith, depriving him of the legs. Fueled by his anger and thirst for revenge, Maul manages to survive the years of clone wars in a junkyard by building spider legs.
Thanks to the help of his brother Savage Opress, he will try to take revenge against Obi-Wan and will try to establish a criminal kingdom but his plans will be cut short. He will return again in the years of the Empire but will be killed by Obi-Wan, after a brief fight that the two have on Tatooine.
12. R2-D2
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Kenny Baker
He is a droid who specializes in interfacing with all sorts of computers, activating any machinery such as elevators, and is skilled in repairs. Hailing from the planet Naboo, he is gifted with a good dose of humor.
He is good at taking certain initiatives using sometimes unorthodox methods to help his friends. He is the inseparable companion of the protocol droid C-3PO, which defines him as his counterpart. Owen Lars speculates that his particular “character” is due to the absence of regular memory erasures, which in a droid can cause instability.
11. Leia Organa
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Carrie Fisher
Daughter of the senator of Naboo Padmé Amidala (who died immediately after giving birth), and of the Jedi Anakin Skywalker (who later became Dart Vader), she is the twin sister of Luke Skywalker, from whom she was separated immediately after her birth on the Polis Massa asteroid in 19 BBY.
On the advice of Master Yoda, while Luke was entrusted to the Lars family on Tatooine, she was adopted and raised on Alderaan by Bail Organa and his wife, Queen Breha Antilles. As an adult, she became a member of the Galactic Senate, where she played a secret role for the Rebel Alliance.
10. Han Solo
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Harrison Ford, Alden Ehrenreich
In the movie Star Wars, Han and his co-pilot Chewbacca become involved in the Rebel Alliance opposing the Galactic Empire. During the course of Star Wars history, he becomes one of the leading figures of the Alliance and subsequent galactic governments.
He later ends up rejoining the protagonists during their fight against the First Order; he was killed by his own son, Kylo Ren.
9. Grogu (Baby Yoda)
Debut: The Mandalorian
Played By: David Acord (voice)
Grogu, also known as “The Child”, “The Asset” and Baby Yoda, is a fictional character that appeared in The Mandalorian. He is a Force-sensitive child that belongs to the same species as Jedi Grandmaster Yoda.
Not much is known about his past, except that he somehow survived Order 66 and that he is exceptionally powerful, which is why he is chased by the remnants of the Empire. At the end of the second season, he was taken in by Luke Skywalker to be trained as a Jedi.
8. Ahsoka Tano
Debut: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Played By: Lauren Mary Kim, Rosario Dawson
Of the Togruta race, the young Jedi Padawan Ahsoka Tano was assigned by master Yoda to Anakin Skywalker. The two, in their first mission, will have to undertake the search for the son of Jabba the Hutt.
During the Clone Wars, she will help Anakin and Obi-Wan Kenobi on various missions, until she leaves the Jedi Order due to a conspiracy. She subsequently reappears, many years later as an adult, initially under the pseudonym of “Fulcrum”, coordinating first the different cells from which the Rebel Alliance will originate, and then as a member of the group of protagonists, the Ghost.
She is later seen as a rogue Jedi, helping Din Djarin and Grogu on their mission in The Mandalorian.
7. Qui-Gon Jinn
Debut: The Phantom Menace
Played By: Liam Neeson
A wise but rebellious Jedi Master, along with his Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi, he was sent by the Jedi Council to resolve the blockade of Naboo, imposed by the Trade Federation. During a brief stop on Tatooine, he discovers a little slave, Anakin Skywalker, whom he believes to be the “Chosen One”.
Determined to train him against the will of the Council, he will never be able to become his Master as he will be killed by the Sith Darth Maul. Despite his death, he played an important role in the future of the Jedi.
6. Grand Admiral Thrawn
Debut: Heir to the Empire
Played By: Lars Mikkelsen (voice)
Grand Admiral Thrawn, whose full name is Mitth’raw’nuruodo, is a character from the Star Wars sci-fi universe. Conceived in the 1990s by Timothy Zahn as the main antagonist for his book Heir to the Empire (the first part of the so-called Thrawn Trilogy of books), the character subsequently appeared in other works of the so-called Expanded Universe.
Following the acquisition of the brand by Walt Disney, the character was reintroduced from scratch in the animated series Star Wars Rebels, as the main antagonist in the third and fourth seasons.
5. Palpatine / Darth Sidious
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Ian McDiarmid, Clive Revill
Initially a charismatic senator of Naboo, Palpatine was actually Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith. In a short time, with deception and manipulation, he manages to become Supreme Chancellor of the Republic.
After revealing himself, he comes to carry out the annihilation of the Jedi order and proclaims himself emperor of the Galactic Empire. After having apprentices in Darth Maul and Count Dooku, he manages to bend to his will the powerful Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, who will serve alongside him in the Empire under the name of Dart Vader.
Palpatine’s reign is brought to an end when the repentant Vader kills him to save his son, Luke Skywalker. Thirty years later it is revealed that Palpatine has managed to survive thanks to the Dark Side of the Force, and announces his return with an immense fleet of Star Destroyers.
Eventually, he will be completely resurrected but will be annihilated for good this time by the Jedi Rey, his niece, and Luke’s apprentice.
4. Luke Skywalker
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Mark Hamill
In the series, Luke is the son of Anakin Skywalker and Padmé Amidala, and the twin brother of Princess Leia. In A New Hope, he undergoes Obi-Wan Kenobi’s training to become a Jedi Knight; he then takes part in the galactic civil war fighting with the Rebel Alliance against the Empire, managing to destroy the Death Star, with the help of Han Solo.
In Return of the Jedi, he finally confronts his father Darth Vader, leading him to repent, rebel, and kill the Emperor, thus causing the final downfall of the Galactic Empire.
3. Obi-Wan Kenobi / Ben Kenobi
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: Ewan McGregor, Alec Guinness
We have finally reached our top three characters on our best Star Wars characters list. Our top three is Obi-Wan Kenobi. Initially Qui-Gon Jinn’s Padawan, along with his Master, he was involved in the battle of Naboo against the droid army of the Trade Federation. After Qui-Gon’s death, at the hands of the Sith Darth Maul, he is promoted to Jedi Knight, and the young Anakin Skywalker is assigned to him as a student.
The two, who have become great friends, become generals of the Republic and of the legends during the Clone Wars. Following Anakin’s passage to the Dark Side and the birth of the Empire, he exiles on Tatooine and becomes, years later, the mentor of Luke Skywalker.
2. Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader
Debut: A New Hope
Played By: David Prowse, Sebastian Shaw, Jake Lloyd, Hayden Christensen, James Earl Jones (voice)
Anakin Skywalker, also known by his name Dart Vader, appears in the original trilogy as the main antagonist, while his past as Anakin Skywalker and the story of his conversion to evil are at the center of the plot of the prequel trilogy and the animated series The Clone Wars, in which he was the protagonist.
Discovered as a child on Tatooine by Qui-Gon Jinn, who believes that he may be the “Chosen One”, following his death he becomes Obi-Wan Kenobi’s apprentice. In a short time, he becomes a mighty Jedi and hero of the clone wars until he converts to the dark side and begins serving the Galactic Empire, as a pupil of his Sith master, Palpatine (aka Darth Sidious).
1. Yoda
Debut: The Empire Strikes Back
Played By: Frank Oz
Yoda is probably the best-known and most powerful character in Lucas’ Star Wars film series; in a way, he has become a trademark character for the franchise. In the original trilogy, he trains Luke Skywalker to fight the Galactic Empire. In the prequel trilogy, he plays the role of Grand Master of the Jedi Order and high general of the Clone Army during the Clone Wars.
He was one of the few Jedi who survived death during the Galactic Civil War and the Great Jedi Purge.
