Star Wars Timeline: Every Movie, Series And More

Ask any Star Wars fan about which film sits where on the timeline of the galaxy far, far away, and they’re most likely tell you it’s simple – before, five minutes later, ranting and raving with a web of red string and a whiteboard, in the style of the Charlie Day Always Sunny meme. With three film trilogies, two spin-off movies, multiple animated series, several live-action shows, canonical video games, plus an entire era so far only explored in novels and comics, the Star Wars timeline has never been bigger – and it’s always expanding in multiple directions.

To keep things simple, we’re breaking down all the big stuff in order – every film, series, and need-to-know era, including a handful of stories that haven’t even reached us yet. We’re making it easy for you, so all you need to know is that ‘BBY’ and ‘ABY’ mean ‘Before the Battle of Yavin’, and – you guessed it – ‘After the Battle of Yavin’, referring to the blowing up of the Death Star at the end of the original Star Wars, aka Episode IV – A New Hope. Seatbelts on, course plotted, hyperspace jump ready: punch it.

This one’s hot off the press – at Star Wars Celebration 2023, it was unveiled that Logan and Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny director James Mangold will be making a Star Wars film, set many thousands of years before the main series, during the newly-minted ‘Dawn Of The Jedi’ era. Until Mangold’s film moves into production, this is mostly a mystery – but the time period involves the discovery of the Force, and the emergence of the first Jedi.

Is The Old Republic even canon anymore? Possibly not – but it is a hugely popular era among fans, as depicted in video games like Knights Of The Old Republic, Knights Of The Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, and online multiplayer experience Star Wars: The Old Republic. And ‘old’ really means ‘old’ – this is still multiple millennia before Luke and Leia were even a twinkle in Anakin’s rapidly-yellowing eyes. This era sees the Jedi-packed (old) Republic hit with the resurgence of the Sith, the wrath of Darth Malak – and most importantly, Malak’s Sith master Darth Revan. (Spoiler alert: Revan turns out to be, well, you.) It remains to be seen whether The Old Republic will be brought back into continuity at some point, or whether elements of the era will become canonical.

Recently established in a run of novels and comics, The High Republic era sees the Jedi at, well, their height. It’s an opulent time where the Order is flourishing – there are Force-users everywhere, with a general aura of peace and progress, and a real sense of expansion with hyperspace routes still being mapped out, and the Starlight Beacon space station offering an outpost on the fringes of the galaxy. Think medieval-meets-Wild West, and you’re partway there. But there’s threat, too, from a Viking-esque group called the Nihil, rampaging across the stars and fighting for whatever they can get their hands on. While The High Republic is being mapped out on the page – there are adult novels, YA novels, kids stories, and comics that all cross over with each other, set across a broad 400-year timespan – it’s finally making its way to the screen in…

Young Jedi Adventures
For the most part, this is relevant mainly to young kids – think the Star Wars equivalent of Spidey And His Amazing Friends, or Paw Patrol with tiny Jedi instead of pups. But Young Jedi Adventures is, technically, our first screen media set in the High Republic, concerning a group of plucky Padawans – Kai Brightstar, Lys Solar, and Nubs – as they learn the ways of the Jedi (sometimes from Yoda himself – he’s a sprightly 664 years old at this point in the timeline).

Older viewers will experience the High Republic on screen for the first time in upcoming Disney+ series The Acolyte – set 100 years before the events of The Phantom Menace. Since it takes place towards the end of the High Republic era, it’s set to explore how a time of prosperity and plentiful Jedi gave way to the re-emergence of the Sith. The series is devised by Leslye Headland, co-creator of Russian Doll, who pitched The Acolyte as ‘Frozen meets Kill Bill’. Footage has so far only been shown at Star Wars Celebration, but it looks to be in a similarly gritty and expansive mode as Andor, with tons of Jedi (including Joonas Suotamo as a Wookiee Jedi called Kelnacca), and a martial arts flavour to the fight scenes. Amandla Stenberg leads the cast, joined by Squid Game’s Lee Jung-jae, Carrie-Anne Moss, The Good Place’s Manny Jacinto, Dafne Keen, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Dean-Charles Chapman. Expect it to hit screens in 2024.