Staff picks: Brick Fanatics’ favourite LEGO Star Wars sets of all time

31/07/202401/08/2024 Chris Wharfe 429 Views 0 Comments

We couldn’t let LEGO Star Wars’ 25th anniversary pass by without picking out our favourite sets of all time, so here are the Brick Fanatics crew’s top selections from the past quarter-century.

LEGO Star Wars turns 25 years old in 2024 (this shouldn’t be news to you at this stage), and we’ve been celebrating with deep dives into the theme, the community, its sets and more. But while we’ve already dug into the most valuable, challenging and strangest sets of all time, it’s also worth taking a moment to just consider and champion the stand-outs from this theme’s long and storied history.

To that end, the Brick Fanatics staff have been ruminating on their favourite LEGO Star Wars sets of all time. And following much deliberation from some (and a little less from others), we’ve managed to come up with a definitive list – at least as things stand in 2024. Who knows what might be around the corner?

Chris – 10188 Death Star

Scour any list of the best movies, video games or albums of all time and you’ll undoubtedly find the progenitors of a genre somewhere near the top. Those works that smash boundaries, establish precedents and rewrite rulebooks are held up for a reason, because while what’s come later might have finetuned their formulas, it’s all part of their legacy. Everything else lives in their shadow, and they’re often unforgettable in their own right.

All of this applies to 10188 Death Star, the precursor to the Master Builder Series and the first LEGO Star Wars set that showed us just what’s possible from playsets with a seemingly unlimited budget. In 2008, this thing was revolutionary, and for me it’s basically the LEGO set that prevented me from entering a dark age and – if you subscribe to the butterfly effect – brought me to where I am today.

I definitely couldn’t afford this one when it first came out, but thanks to the also seemingly unlimited staying power it had on shelves, I finally managed to get hold of it in 2014, some six years after it first dropped. All that time my interest in picking up the Death Star fuelled and maintained my wider interest in LEGO, even while I wasn’t really buying anything. And it was absolutely worth the wait.

10188 Death Star is imbued with LEGO DNA through and through – hello studs – and never before and never since have we seen so many iconic moments from a galaxy far, far away crammed into a single set. LEGO Star Wars owes a debt to this powerhouse of a playset for laying the groundwork for huge products with unrivalled minifigure counts, but this one’s still my favourite.

Rachael – 10236 Ewok Village

You’ve never seen brick-built Endor quite as it is in 10326 Ewok Village, either before or since. LEGO Star Wars as a theme is dominated by ships, vehicles, and the occasional diorama but 10326 Ewok Village asks the question: what if LEGO City and Star Wars merged?

The results are triumphant: a 1,990-piece set packed out with 17 characters. The Ewoks’ treehouses of Endor might not be as tall as their on-screen counterparts but the final display is certainly impressive. Indeed, it’s a rare thing for the main build to outshine a character line-up of 17, especially in the LEGO Star Wars theme – but 10326 Ewok Village does just that.

Open fronts to the buildings allow for various play and display opportunities, with rope walkways, a throne that can rise, traps, a slide for the Ewoks, and much, much more. This LEGO Star Wars set is the gift that keeps on giving, with hidden features and interactivity hidden behind every brick-built trunk. LEGO Star Wars doesn’t often stray from the tried and tested formula of grey and black ships – but it pays off when it does.

Jack – 75187 BB-8

Many people may look towards the countless massive or minifigure-centric entries in LEGO Star Wars when asked to pick out their favourite set (see the rest of this list for a few examples). LEGO Star Wars models don’t need minifigures or a colossal creation to be memorable though.

My personal favourite LEGO Star Wars set is the equal-parts adorable and structurally impressive 75187 BB-8 from 2017. I have been infatuated with the cute creation since I started building it when I was at university and experiencing living on my own for the first time.

I quickly found that taking some time away from studying to build the droid and display it next to my desk offered a constant source of escapism. Even seven years later, the complicated, studded design of 75187 BB-8’s ball body, the moving head and how hidden the set’s features are astound me.

It’s a masterclass in LEGO design and highlights the potential of brick-built droid models better than most other entries in the range. I particularly love having BB-8 give me the thumbs up over and over again. While it does include a figure of BB-8, 75187 BB-8 isn’t as minifigure-centric as other LEGO Star Wars creations, and it simply doesn’t need to be.

Matt – 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina

If there was ever one LEGO Star Wars set that’s managed to show the full potential of the theme, it has to be 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina. Accurately honouring its source material, showcasing amazing attention to detail, offering plenty of playability and including a frankly bonkers selection of 21 minifigures, this model from a galaxy far, far away truly has it all.

While it’s a LEGO Star Wars set that I’ve always wanted to own, I’ve never been able to afford the 18+ build to date, yet 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina has always seemed to justify its £344.99 / $399.99 / €399.99 price tag to me. The fact that 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina has yet to be retired years after its 2020 release (when we’ve said goodbye to so many LEGO Star Wars sets during that period) is also a testament to just how incredible and desirable a model it is.

At a time when LEGO sets are steadily increasing in price and offering less for more, how many other models would dare to come with 21 minifigures, with some never having been available outside of 75290 Mos Eisley Cantina? Everything you need to recreate the iconic scene from A New Hope has been considered, designed and included to satisfy even the most demanding of Star Wars fans.

75290 Mos Eisley Cantina remains the pinnacle of LEGO Star Wars sets for me and I look forward to the day when I’ll finally be able to add this holy grail of a model to my collection.

Rob – 75313 AT-AT

For me, 75313 AT-AT stands as the greatest LEGO Star Wars set of the past 25 years. The minifigure-scale 18+ creation towers over everything else you may have been lucky to build out of LEGO and perfectly captures the menace and wonder these walkers have always projected in equal measure when on screen.

An awesome beast of a machine has so skilfully been translated into a LEGO model and in such a way that building it remains unforgettable for me a couple of years on, and having it on display in my house still causes me to pause and take in its impressive design, however many times I walk past it.

There are plenty of impressive LEGO Star Wars sets and certainly so within the Ultimate Collector Series, but 75313 AT-AT is the one that wholeheartedly embraces the sheer enormity of its source material like no other. Indeed, for the considerations around that ridiculous size, it is likely a set that for a majority of LEGO Star Wars’ history as a theme was not physically possible to build, so for any number of reasons it very much stands as the current peak of LEGO ingenuity and design.

Head here to check out the rest of our LEGO Star Wars 25th anniversary coverage, and keep an eye out for more in the weeks and months to come – there’s plenty of 2024 left yet. Don’t forget too that an entire wave of brand new LEGO Star Wars sets is landing on shelves August 1.

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Author Profile

Chris Wharfe

I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.