When the Star Wars franchise returned to the big screen in 2015 with 鈥淓pisode VII 鈥 The Force Awakens鈥, the first chapter of the third and final Skywalker trilogy quickly became the highest-grossing Star Wars film in the franchise鈥檚 decade-spanning history.
Grossing more than $2 billion at the box office worldwide, the seventh part of the Skywalker saga edged out 鈥淓pisode I 鈥 The Phantom Menace鈥 (1999) by more than $1 billion. That鈥檚 only part of the story though. Taking ticket price inflation into account, the original 1977 Star Wars film is still the most successful one. While at the time 鈥淎 New Hope鈥 generated $775 million in worldwide box office earnings, that translates to more than $3.5 billion adjusted to today鈥檚 ticket prices.
The following chart ranks all nine installments of the core Star Wars saga by their box office earnings adjusted to 2023 ticket prices. It shows that Episode II, released in 2002, was the least commercially successful entry to the franchise. According to , Episode I was the least popular one among critics, while audiences were least impressed with the "The Last Jedi", released in 2017.
