The Star Wars movies ordered by critical reception

In just a few weeks, we'll know how well the new Star Wars movie The Last Jedi will be received by critics. Reactions to other movies from the franchise have been mixed based on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores. These two major aggregaters of movie reviews use a different approach.

Rotten Tomatoes uses a simple thumbs up and thumbs down to determine if a movie is rotten or fresh. Metacritic is similar to grades in school. A movie can receive a Metascore from 0 to 100. A Metascore above 81 is critically acclaimed, between 61 and 80 is positive, 40 and 60 is mixed, and anything below 40 is negative. This is how the movies in the Star Wars franchise rank on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.

Rotten Tomatoes Ranking:

• The Empire Strikes Back - 94%
• A New Hope - 93%
• The Force Awakens - 93%
• Rogue One - 85%
• Return of the Jedi - 80%
• Revenge of the Sith - 79%
• Attack of the Clones - 66%
• The Phantom Menace - 56% (Certified Rotten)

Metacritic Ranking:

• A New Hope - 92% (Critically Acclaimed)
• The Empire Strikes Back - 81% (Critically Acclaimed)
• The Force Awakens - 81% (Critically Acclaimed)
• Revenge of the Sith - 68% (Positive)
• Rogue One - 65% (Positive)
• Attack of the Clones - 54% (Mixed)
• Return of the Jedi - 53% (Mixed)
• The Phantom Menace - 51% (Mixed)

The top 3 movies are the same for both although the positions for the Empire Strikes Back and A New Hope are flipped. Revenge of the Sith beats Rogue One and Return of the Jedi on Metacritic but is behind them on Rotten Tomatoes. The Phantom Menace trails the movie above it by a whole 10 points on Rotten Tomatoes but by just two points on Metacritic. On Rotten Tomatoes 7 of the 8 movies were positively received with a fresh certification. But only 5 out of 8 were positively received on Metacritic. We'll find out soon where The Last Jedi will be in both rankings.