Screen
Movie Drinking Game
Every trope is a trigger - turn any film into a game.
Franchise Drinking Game
Star Wars Drinking Game
The **Star Wars Drinking Game** works across nine saga films because the franchise repeats itself on purpose....
You watchStar Wars
You needDrinks + friends
Triggers14 drink rules
Best with2-15 players
The Star Wars Drinking Game works across nine saga films because the franchise repeats itself on purpose. Someone has a bad feeling about this in every episode, R2-D2 beeps and C-3PO panics, Stormtroopers miss, a ship jumps to hyperspace, and a lightsaber hums before the big duel. The list below is tuned for the original trilogy, where those beats are spaced out by cantina scenes and Vader's breathing, but it holds up from The Phantom Menace to The Rise of Skywalker with a few weights adjusted.
The three trilogies drink very differently. The prequels are lightsaber heavy: the Geonosis arena in Attack of the Clones and the multiple duels in Revenge of the Sith turn the lightsaber rule into a firehose. The originals spread their triggers evenly and add Vader's breathing and Yoda's grammar. The sequels drop Vader and Yoda almost entirely and lean on the Falcon, hyperspace and Kylo Ren's temper. Choose your film, then trim the list to its trilogy before you compare it with any other movie drinking game.
How to set it up
- Pick your entry point: A New Hope for the cleanest run of the full list, The Empire Strikes Back for Yoda and the Vader duel, Revenge of the Sith if your group wants to drink on every lightsaber and does not mind how that ends.
- Pour for a film just over two hours - every saga entry runs between two hours and two hours thirty, and the space battle that opens or closes it is where the ship rules stack.
- Assign a hyperspace and droid spotter: the Falcon's jump to lightspeed and a background astromech go by fast, and R2-D2's beeps get buried under John Williams.
- Agree how the Force rule counts before the crawl: a single choke or mind trick is one sip, but a full Force fight - Yoda versus Dooku, Rey versus Kylo - is one sip for the scene, or the prequels will take the room down.
The rules: drink when…
The heart of the game: 14 triggers. Read them out before you press play, keep the ones your group likes, cut any that would fire every minute, and remember that a "drink" is one sip.
| When this happens… | …you drink |
|---|---|
| A lightsaber ignites or hums | Sip |
| Someone uses the Force - a push, pull, choke, or mind trick | Sip |
| A character says 'I have a bad feeling about this' | Sip twice |
| R2-D2 beeps or C-3PO frets about the odds | Sip |
| Someone says 'May the Force be with you' | Sip |
| An X-wing, TIE fighter, or the Millennium Falcon flies on screen | Sip |
| Darth Vader's mechanical breathing is heard | Sip |
| A Stormtrooper misses an easy shot or gets knocked out | Sip |
| Yoda speaks with his words out of order | Sip twice |
| The Empire or the Rebellion is mentioned by name | Sip |
| A ship jumps to hyperspace | Sip |
| A cantina, droid, or new alien species appears | Sip |
| Someone loses a hand, limb, or their weapon in a fight | Sip |
| A hero and a villain square off in a lightsaber duel | Drink for 3 seconds |
How to play
Pick the trilogy, then the film
Original trilogy: run the full list. Prequels: downgrade lightsabers to one sip per scene and add a rule for Jar Jar or the podrace instead. Sequels: drop Vader's breathing and Yoda, keep the Falcon, hyperspace and 'bad feeling', and add one for Kylo Ren destroying a control panel.
Drink with the film's shape
Each saga film opens with the crawl and a set-piece - a blockade runner, a Hoth attack, a Jakku raid - then settles into travel and planning before a three-strand finale. The middle third is where the droid, cantina and Empire-or-Rebellion rules earn their keep; the ship and lightsaber rules all crowd into the last thirty minutes.
Handle the duel
Every saga film ends in a lightsaber duel or a Force confrontation, and that is the one three-second drink. Luke and Vader on Cloud City, Obi-Wan and Anakin on Mustafar, Rey and Kylo in the snow: one long drink when the sabers cross, then back to sips until the credits.
Count the Stormtroopers
Stormtroopers missing is the rule that runs away in A New Hope's Death Star escape and the Endor bunker fight in Return of the Jedi. Count one sip per firefight, not per miss, unless your group specifically wants to feel the Death Star corridor.
Variations & house rules
Machete order marathon
Watch IV, V, II, III, VI in that order - the fan-favourite sequence that keeps the Vader reveal intact. Use the original-trilogy list for IV and V, switch to the prequel weights (lightsabers one sip per scene) for II and III, then bring the full list back for Return of the Jedi and add a sip for every Ewok that takes down a Stormtrooper.
Rebels vs Empire teams
Split the room by faction. The Rebel side drinks whenever the Empire wins a beat - a planet destroyed, a rebel captured, Vader Force-choking an officer - and the Empire side drinks whenever the Rebellion scores, from a torpedo down the exhaust port to the shield generator going up on Endor. For the prequels, rename the sides Republic and Separatists; for the sequels, Resistance and First Order.
Jedi duel
Two players each take a saber wielder - Luke and Vader, Obi-Wan and Anakin, Rey and Kylo. Every time your character swings a lightsaber or uses the Force, the other player drinks. Pick from the prequels and the count is brutal; pick Luke in A New Hope and you barely touch your drink until the Death Star trench.
Pro tips
Runtimes go from two hours and one minute (A New Hope) to about two and a half (The Last Jedi), with the prequels and sequels all on the longer side and heavier on lightsabers.
A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back are the best single picks: 'bad feeling', Vader's breathing, Yoda, the Falcon, hyperspace and Stormtrooper misses all fire without any one rule taking over.
Captions help with 'I have a bad feeling about this' - it is often thrown away under engine noise, and in The Last Jedi it is BB-8's beeps that get the line, which the room will argue about.
Drink responsibly: A single original-trilogy film fires the list dozens of times, and a prequel with the lightsaber rule left at one sip per ignition can double that in its final hour. A movie-length game adds up fast, so keep the pours small, water between drinks, and swap any trigger for a sip of water whenever you like. See our safety guide.
Frequently asked questions
Which Star Wars movie is best for a drinking game?
A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back. Both fire the whole list at a steady pace - Vader's breathing, R2-D2 and C-3PO, the Falcon, hyperspace, Stormtroopers missing - and end on a duel for the three-second drink. Revenge of the Sith is the pick for a group that wants the most lightsaber time; it is also the fastest way to run out of drink.
How do you play the Star Wars drinking game for the prequels?
Downgrade the lightsaber and Force rules to one sip per scene instead of per ignition, because Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith stack whole armies of Jedi. Drop Vader's breathing until the last five minutes of Sith, and add rules for Jar Jar, Anakin complaining about sand and every 'from my point of view' style speech in the finale duel.
Can you play the Star Wars drinking game for a full saga marathon?
Nine films is roughly twenty hours, so most groups split it into a trilogy a day or use the five-film machete order. For any marathon keep 'bad feeling', hyperspace, limb loss and the final duel, drop lightsabers and the Force entirely, and run one film-specific rule per movie - podrace, Ewoks, Porgs - from the variations above.
What are the best Star Wars drinking game rules for Return of the Jedi?
Keep Vader's breathing, Yoda (his last scene), the Falcon and Stormtroopers missing - the Endor bunker fight is the highest miss count in the trilogy. Add Ewoks and every time Jabba laughs. The throne-room duel between Luke and Vader is your three-second drink; hold it until the sabers actually cross.
Published · Last updated · How we research games
