The new Star Wars movie, The Mandalorian & Grogu, doesn’t have a great individual villain, although there are bad guys all over the new film. The new film has some familiar villains gunning for Mando and Grogu, but the Hutt Twins don’t have the same level of threat and menace as their late, great relative Jabba the Hutt. However, there are a few recent villains in Star Wars’ live-action universe that match up with the best of the original movies and even the prequels.
The important thing to note is that the best live-action Star Wars villains are a strong mix of Force-users and non-Force-users, with crime lords like Jabba the Hutt and bounty hunters like Boba Fett offering up a threat as powerful, if not more so, than many people inside the Empire itself. However, when measured against the Sith Lords, it is often easy to fall short when it comes to pure power levels.
From a sluggish Tatooine crime lord to the man who pulled every Sith string over nine different films, the live-action Star Wars saga has produced a laundry list of villains whose threat levels make things hard for every hero in the Rebel Alliance and beyond. While many Star Wars villains showed even more power in the world of the animated series, when it comes to just breaking down the live-action appearances, the villains in the galaxy far, far away are still very powerful.
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Jabba The Hutt
Jabba the Hutt debuted in 1983’s Return of the Jedi as a gangster who runs his base of operations on Tatooine. Unlike many Star Wars villains, he has no Jedi powers, but he is a powerful crime lord who runs an empire of his own. When Darth Vader captures Han Solo, Boba Fett returns the hero to Jabba, who uses him as decoration in his lair until Luke Skywalker shows up to save him. Jabba is very powerful, and when Luke shows up, Jabba is able to capture him in the pit with the Rancor.
Jabba’s main powers come with his wealth, high-powered connections, and a private army of bounty hunters, including Boba Fett. He is also extremely feared, with his son Rotta saying in The Mandalorian & Grogu that even the Hutt Twins feared the crime lord, as Jabba was the man who controlled the family empire when he was alive. It is why the Hutt Twins wanted to kill Jabba’s son, Rotta, to ensure they kept control. However, Jabba the Hutt’s power is capped, and he dies with little resistance, with Princess Leia strangling him.
9
Boba Fett
Boba Fett is another Star Wars villain without any Force-powers. However, he is also the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy. He works for Jabba the Hutt, was hired out to Darth Vader, and is a preferred option for both of those villains when it came to hunting down targets. Looking at only the movies, he isn’t that powerful on screen, as he needs help catching Han Solo and then seemingly dies in the Sarlacc Pit. However, there was more to Boba Fett’s story.
Boba Fett is Jango Fett’s son, and Jango was the bounty hunter used to create all the Clone Troopers. It should also be noted that Boba Fett survived the fall into the Sarlacc Pit, and he returned in The Mandalorian season 2 before starring in his own Disney+ series, The Book of Boba Fett. His Mandalorian armor, jetpack, wrist flamethrower, whipcord launcher, and reputation as the galaxy’s most feared bounty hunter make him the best in his occupation in the Star Wars universe.
8
Snoke
The Supreme Leader of the First Order, Snoke was the main villain for most of the sequel trilogy, debuting in 2015’s The Force Awakens. He appeared in the first two movies of the sequel trilogy and had a brief return in The Rise of Skywalker in 2019. He was those movies’ version of the Emperor until it turned out the real Emperor was still alive. Kylo Ren kills Snoke in The Last Jedi when he activates Rey’s lightsaber and cuts the Supreme Leader in half.
Snoke is powerful enough to mind-probe Rey across the galaxy, lift Rey telekinetically, and dominate his apprentice Kylo Ren. However, Snoke is ultimately revealed in The Rise of Skywalker to be a puppet of Palpatine. It was then shown that Snoke’s power was borrowed from Palpatine, and he dies in an embarrassing manner he never sees coming.
7
General Grievous
General Grievous is one of the villains in the prequel trilogy, the cyborg Supreme Commander of the Separatist Droid Army. Revenge of the Sith is his only live-action film, although he was shown extensively in The Clone Wars animated series. As a cyborg, he is incredibly impressive in battle. While not Force-sensitive, Count Dooku trained Grievous in lightsaber combat. He wields four sabers simultaneously, has collected dozens more of them from slain Jedi, and both pilots and leads the entire droid army.
He is a genuine Jedi killer and most of his lightsabers are from warriors he personally killed, so this alone shows his power levels. However, he is killed in battle by Obi-Wan Kenobi on Utapau after Obi-Wan tears open his chest plate to expose his organs and Grievous ends up shot in the chest by his own blaster. This weakness limits his overall power, despite all his kills in the past.
6
Count Dooku
Count Dooku was a former Jedi who turned into the Sith Lord Darth Tyranus. He appeared in two movies, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith, and he is a master of Form II (Makashi) lightsaber combat. He is also capable of channeling Force lightning, and is a former Jedi Master who personally trained Qui-Gon Jinn, who trained Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Dooku shows how powerful he is when he fights Yoda in Attack of the Clones, holding his own, and then he defeats Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker early on. However, he doesn’t have Palpatine’s respect, and the Emperor considers Dooku expendable, showing his ceiling. Anakin Skywalker severs both of Dooku’s hands and then decapitates him at Palpatine’s command.
5
Darth Maul
Darth Maul appeared in The Phantom Menace and he also had a cameo in Solo: A Star Wars Story. He is extremely powerful, a Sith Lord personally chosen and trained from childhood by Darth Sidious. He is a lethal Form VII acrobatic duelist, wields a double-bladed lightsaber, and the first major villain to kill a Jedi Master (Qui-Gon) on screen in the prequels. However, what happens next shows his limitations.
Obi-Wan Kenobi, gaining revenge for Qui-Gon’s death, bisects Darth Maul and seemingly kills him in The Phantom Menace. While it was not shown in the live-action movies or TV shows, Darth Maul survived this attack, and he returned in The Clone Wars, Rebels, and his own animated Disney+ series, Star Wars: Maul — Shadow Lord. His survival and fighting skills make him more powerful than the expendable Count Dooku.
4
Grand Admiral Thrawn
The villains in the Disney+ Star Wars world have been hit-and-miss, but the best of them arrived in Ahsoka season 1. The reason this was so exciting was that Grand Admiral Thrawn was a character from Timothy Zahn’s critically acclaimed Star Wars novels, where Thrawn made his name as a genuine replacement for Darth Vader as the franchise’s deadliest villain.
Grand Admiral Thrawn is one of Star Wars’ most dangerous villains, and he is not Force-sensitive at all. His power comes with his military genius. Thrawn out-thinks Ahsoka Tano, Sabine Wren, and Hera Syndulla simultaneously and walks away with a fleet. Without any Force-powers, he leaves his battle in Ahsoka undefeated and never needs a lightsaber to get the victory, and he remains one of the most threatening villains in the galaxy.
3
Kylo Ren
Kylo Ren is Ben Solo, the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, and the nephew of Luke Skywalker. With the blood of Darth Vader running through him, he is one of the most powerful Force-users in the entire Star Wars franchise. In the sequel trilogy, he stops a blaster bolt in midair on his first appearance, performs deep mind probes on Poe Dameron and Rey, kills Snoke, holds his own against Luke Skywalker’s Force-projection, and defeats the Knights of Ren in single combat.
He appears in all three sequel movies, and kills both his master, Snoke, and his own father, Han Solo. He is a rare villain who achieved the feat of killing both the Supreme Leader and then surviving Palpatine, meaning he outclasses almost every villain in Star Wars history. He ends up sacrificing his own life to save Rey, and transfers his life-force to her so she can fight Palpatine. Ren dies as a Jedi rather than a Sith apprentice.
2
Emperor Palpatine
Emperor Palpatine is the main villain across all nine of the main Star Wars movies, working as Darth Vader’s Master, including causing Anakin Skywalker to turn on the Jedi. He is responsible for tearing down the Republic and creating the Empire. He is responsible for the execution of almost every single Jedi in the universe. He even survived Darth Vader’s assassination attempt, later returning to tempt Kylo Ren in the sequel trilogy.
Palpatine possesses torrent-level Force-lightning. He takes on Mace Windu and three Jedi Masters at once in Revenge of the Sith and leaves alive thanks to his manipulation of Anakin Skywalker. He manipulates the Republic into the Empire across the entire prequel trilogy, and orchestrates the First Order from beyond the grave. Darth Vader beats him in Return of the Jedi by throwing him down a reactor shaft and then dies when Rey reflects his Force-lightning back at him.
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Darth Vader
While Palpatine is Darth Vader’s Master (as well as the Master to Darth Maul, Count Dooku, and Kylo Ren, and the creator of Snoke), it is Darth Vader who is the most powerful villain in the entire Star Wars universe. Palpatine knew in the prequel trilogy that he couldn’t win and hold onto the Empire without Darth Vader by his side, which is why he worked so hard to tempt Anakin Skywalker to the life of a Sith Lord.
Darth Vader kills Obi-Wan Kenobi, who the prequels showed was one of the Jedi’s most powerful warriors. He dominates Luke every time they fight, and he kills countless people with just the Force. In Return of the Jedi, Palpatine tries to kill Luke Skywalker, only for Darth Vader to turn good again and save his son by throwing Palpatine down the shaft and helping end the Empire’s stronghold once and for all. While Palpatine survived that incident, Darth Vader still beat him and that makes Anakin Skywalker the most powerful Jedi and Sith Lord in Star Wars history.