Is 'Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back' Truly The Greatest Film Of All Time?

It may come as a bit of a surprise to hear that Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back has been voted Empire Magazine's greatest movie of all time. The new poll, which included 250,000 film fans, saw the second Star Wars movie, or the fifth, depending on whether you take chronology or date into account, beat The Godfather, The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction. Traditionally, all three films tend to rank higher than The Empire Strikes Back, in movie polls taken by film fans.

Is The Empire Strikes Back truly the greatest movie of all time?

Empire Magazine’s list is compiled of 301 films, which also includes two other Star Wars movies, Return of the Jedi and Revenge of the Sith. This surely bodes well for the franchise, which is currently working on Star Wars Episode VII, which is due for release in 2015.

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But is Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back truly the greatest film of all time? The IMDb Top 250 movies, as voted by regular users of the site, places the film at number 12, a sharp drop from the top spot. Topping the IMDb list is The Shawshank Redemption, followed by The Godfather Part I and Part II, The Dark Knight and Pulp Fiction.

Review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes places The Wizard of Oz at the top spot in its Top 100 Movies , as decided on by critic and viewer opinion. The Empire Strikes Back fails to make the site’s Top 100 Movies, despite holding a 96% fresh rating.

George Lucas was understandably pleased to see his film top the Empire Magazine poll. The director said it was “a privilege” and added, “The fans like The Empire Strikes Back the best [of the Star Wars films], partly because it is so dark. It’s an overall story and as it happens in the second act, things get dark. I never really planned it to be three separate films but when it became three separate films, it had an interesting effect of each film having its own personality, caused by the plot.”

The Empire Strikes Back failed to make it on to Rotten Tomatoes' Top 100 Films list

There’s no denying that The Empire Strikes Back is a great film, after all, it’s the film in which we meet Jedi Master Yoda for the very first time, or should we say, Jedi Master Yoda for the first time we meet! There’s a lot of action and perhaps one of the most shocking cliffhanger endings in any film, ever.

But does it deserve to be named the greatest film of all time? Let us know your thoughts.

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