Star Wars is an American epic space-opera media franchise created by George Lucas. The franchise began with the eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon.
The original film, later subtitled
Episode IV – A New Hope, was followed by the sequels
Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and
Episode VI – Return of the Jedi (1983), forming what is collectively referred to as the original trilogy. A prequel trilogy was later released, consisting of
Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999),
Episode II – Attack of the Clones (2002) and
Episode III – Revenge of the Sith (2005). Years later, a sequel trilogy began with
Episode VII – The Force Awakens (2015), continued with
Episode VIII – The Last Jedi (2017), and will conclude with
Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker (2019). The first eight films were nominated for Academy Awards and were commercially successful. Together with the theatrical anthology films
Rogue One (2016) and
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018), the combined box office revenue of the films equates to over
US$9 billion, and is currently the second-highest-grossing film franchise.