Only 5 Star Wars movies were released outside of May

Do you know every Star Wars movie release date by heart? Even if you have one of those shirts with all the dates on the back (I still don’t!), you probably have to peek at at least a few of them. May 25 is easy — multiple movies share that date. But not all Star Wars release dates are May release dates!

May the everything be with you

May is Star Wars Month, as far as most fans are concerned. With Star Wars Day on May 4, George Lucas’s birthday on May 14, and seven Star Wars movies all celebrating May anniversaries each year, it’s “the” month to be a Star Wars fan.

There’s no actual reason why nearly “everything Star Wars” happens in May. That’s just the way it’s always been.

Every Star Wars movie release date in order

Spanning from 1977 to 2019, Star Wars has so far graced the big screen for over 40 years. While we don’t know for sure when the next movie will be — or when it will release specific to the month — there’s a lot of history to honor here. Here are all the movie release dates in order, starting with A New Hope (once just called “Star Wars”).

• A New Hope (May 25, 1977)
• The Empire Strikes Back (May 21, 1980)
• Return of the Jedi (May 25, 1983)
• The Phantom Menace (May 19, 1999)
• Attack of the Clones (May 16, 2002)
• Revenge of the Sith (May 19, 2005)
• The Clone Wars (film) (August 16, 2008)
• The Force Awakens (December 18, 2015)
• Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (December 16, 2016)
• The Last Jedi (December 15, 2017)
• Solo: A Star Wars Story (May 25, 2018)
• The Rise of Skywalker (December 20, 2019)

The longest gap between Star Wars film releases was between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, which were released almost exactly 16 years apart. The shortest gap between movies goes to The Last Jedi and Solo: A Star Wars Story with just over five months between them.

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