STAR Wars flick The Empire Strikes Back has been voted the greatest movie of
all time in a poll of more than 250,000 film fans.
The 1980 film, released three years after the first Star Wars movie, topped a
poll of 301 titles.
It beat Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather and Batman sequel The Dark
Knight.
In fourth place was The Shawshank Redemption followed by Pulp Fiction in
fifth.
Star Wars creator George Lucas said it was “a privilege” to see the film top
the poll.
He said: “The fans like The Empire Strikes Back the best, partly because it is
so dark. It’s an overall story and as it happens in the second act, things
get dark.
“I never really planned it to be three separate films but when it became three
separate films, it had an interesting effect of each film having its own
personality, caused by the plot.”
Other films in the Empire magazine poll’s top ten include the first Star Wars
film, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Jaws.
Empire’s editor-in-chief Mark Dinning said: “We are delighted, if not
surprised, that The Empire Strikes Back has been voted the Number One
Greatest Movie Of All Time, by the hundreds of thousands of readers of
Empire.
“This is a movie that when it was released managed to make Star Wars both
bigger and more intimate all at the same time. And today it retains all of
its power, wit, heart and spectacle.”