Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back

Available Now

On DVD

Get This Movie

Critic Reviews

Avg. Rating:
San Francisco Chronicle | Peter StackAdd Critic to Favorites

The balance between action and mysticism in The Empire Strikes Back provides fascinating energy. It's as if the kids are given one set of delights, the bravado of battles and elaborate warships zooming through exotic space, and adults are given another, a layered explanation of what it all means in the grand scheme of things. [Special Edition]Read the full review

Chicago Sun-Times | Roger EbertAdd Critic to Favorites

The best of three Star Wars films, and the most thought-provoking. After the space opera cheerfulness of the original film, this one plunges into darkness and even despair, and surrenders more completely to the underlying mystery of the story. It is because of the emotions stirred in Empire that the entire series takes on a mythic quality that resonates back to the first and ahead to the third. This is the heart.Read the full review

Entertainment Weekly | Lisa SchwarzbaumAdd Critic to Favorites

The storytelling is the series' best, with a zingy balance of drama, humor, and Deep Thoughts (in a screenplay by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan, directed with confident exuberance by Irvin Kershner). [Special Edition]Read the full review