Star Wars: The Best Sith Lords Ranked

Though the Sith may keep their numbers small, out of choice and necessity depending on which time period you’re looking at, they’ve still managed to be the ultimate enemy of the Jedi for millennia. In fact, there have been many powerful Sith Lords throughout the galaxy’s history, both in current canon and the Legends timeline that have challenged and defeated the guardians of peace throughout Star Wars history.

With The Acolyte offering another perspective on the Sith’s master/apprentice dynamic, it seems like a great time to look back on the most powerful Sith Lords in the Star Wars universe, both the most well-known villains from canon as well as the classic baddies from the non-canon Legends continuity (there are just too many good ones to ignore the old Expanded Universe!).

Here’s our ranking of the very best Sith Lords to ever appear in Star Wars.

12. Count Dooku

Like many of his Sith predecessors, Count Dooku was a former Jedi who left the order after becoming disillusioned with their practices. He turned to the dark side and became the apprentice of Palpatine after Darth Maul’s apparent death. But despite his turn, Dooku maintained a lot of the patience of his Jedi studies, making him a formidable opponent for the Jedi during the Clone Wars, even to highly skilled Jedi like Yoda. Rather than being wholly brash and passionate with his anger and hatred, Dooku was often cold and calculating. He knew when to push on and when to retreat. He was such a thorn in the Jedi’s side, that they even came up with a plan to assassinate him in the novel Dark Disciple using Quinlan Vos and Asajj Ventress.

11. Darth Zannah

As the apprentice of Sith mastermind Darth Bane in Legends canon, Darth Zannah was the first Sith to officially succeed her Master under the newly established Rule of Two. Her approach to succession, however, was a lot more nuanced than some of the others on this list. She had several opportunities throughout her training where Darth Bane was weakened, and even on his deathbed, where she could have easily taken him out and taken his place, but she knew she still had a lot to learn. So she helped him heal, and she waited.

By the time Zannah was ready to succeed her master, the two had a deep respect and understanding of each other. Rather than stabbing him in the back or slitting his throat in his sleep, they dueled properly as Bane had intended—a true test to see whether the student had become the master. And Zannah succeeded. Not only was she incredibly adept at wielding a lightsaber, but she was also a powerful Sith sorceress. One of her many talents included the ability to conjure tendrils made out of Dark Side-influenced black mist that could disintegrate flesh and bone on contact.

10. Darth Plagueis

Often referred to as Plagueis the Wise, Darth Plagueis was obsessed with trying to achieve true immortality, a passion he shared with his apprentice, Darth Sidious, aka Palpatine. Plagueis eventually developed the ability to manipulate midi-chlorians to create life and prolong it, to an extent.

This ability fueled his research alongside Palpatine for years, until his apprentice decided to take their work for himself. It is also believed that Plagueis had the ability of foresight, though that clearly didn’t stop him from facing the same fate as so many other Sith Lords before him and dying at the hands of his apprentice.

Outside of his research in prolonging life, Plagueis was also incredibly adept at using the Force to end life as well. In Legends canon, he created a Force wave so powerful that it atomized six of his opponents instantly.

9. The Stranger

While much of The Stranger and his past still remain a mystery, he’s already proven himself to be a pretty powerful Sith Lord in The Acolyte. He mowed down an entire team of Jedi with ease on Khofar with both his lightsaber skills and his Force-wielding capabilities. He was able to Force-throw his lightsabers like boomerangs while fighting Sol on Brendok, and his arms are so thick that he was able to break a guy’s neck without his Force powers, but that’s beside the point. Add to that the fact that he does the majority of his fighting without sight while wearing a sensory deprivation helmet, and The Stranger is one hell of a force to be reckoned with. His design is also cool as hell.

This is all on top of the fact that The Stranger has shown that he’s just at gifted at disguising himself and deceiving even in Jedi. This Sith Lord could very well be a master of deceit, a much more important skill to have than lightsaber abilities when you’re outnumbered by hundreds of Jedi Knights across the galaxy.

8. Darth Nihilus

Darth Nihilus served as Dark Lord of the Sith in a triumvirate with Darth Sion and Darth Traya in the aftermath of the Jedi Civil War in the classic Legends timeline video game Knights of the Republic II: The Sith Lords. Not only was Nihilus an incredibly skilled fighter, but an injury from a Mass Shadow Generator Superweapon left him with a ravenous need to consume Force energy in order to stay alive. It’s why he could sense Force-sensitive people on planets throughout the galaxy, and he was drawn to them like a moth to a flame. Once he was close enough, he could kill any and everything connected to the Force, absorbing their energy to sustain him until the next feeding. He could eat entire planets this way!

Nihilus also had the ability to cut off a lifeform’s connection to the Force, using this power to betray his former master and fellow Dark Lord, Darth Traya, the very person who taught him how to feed his insatiable hunger.

7. Darth Sion

Darth Traya’s other apprentice and fellow triumvirate member, Darth Sion was so set on achieving immortality that by the end of his life he was essentially a walking corpse fueled solely by anger, hatred, and pain. Using those emotions to keep himself alive despite his heavily scarred and decaying flesh (imagine the smell), Sion was essentially unkillable. He became so driven by pain that he sought out combat in an effort to finally achieve death, but that only seemed to keep him going until he became little more than a sadistic, angry, living corpse.

6. Darth Traya

Formerly the Jedi Master Kreia, Darth Traya was one of the most powerful Sith Lords in Legends canon, and a clear inspiration for Qimir/The Stranger in The Acolyte. As a Jedi, Kreia became so bitter and disillusioned with the Force’s hold over the galaxy that she came to believe that the galaxy would be better off without the Force entirely. Obviously, her dreams never came to pass, but it’s interesting to see a Force-wielder of any kind ready to denounce the source of their power, especially a Sith.

Even while hiding her true identity as a Sith Lord in the game, Kreia feels the pull every now and again, giving into the Dark Side when she needs to take out anyone who stands in the way of her plans, especially Darth Sion and Darth Nihilus, the apprentices who betrayed her. When she does tap into the Force again later in the game, she can use it to perform a variety of tricks and manipulations to both terrify and brutally defeat her opponents. She also had the ability to view “shatterpoints” or incredibly important moments in the future.

Essentially, what makes Traya such a worthy Sith Lord is how she manipulated all those around her, including an enclave of Jedi who paid the ultimate price at her hand, and schooled her former apprentices when she decided to get back in the Sith game, all part of a plan to wage war on the Force itself. That’s some long term and ambitious thinking.

5. Darth Revan

Darth Revan was a former Jedi of the Old Republic who played a pivotal role during the Mandalorian Wars and the Jedi Civil War. Though he appears in other Legends canon stories, Revan is most likely recognizable as the lead playable character in the video game Knights of the Old Republic and as a major character in later The Old Republic expansions. Though the game does see him lose his memories at the hands of the Jedi and become a Republic officer for them once again, it doesn’t diminish the power he has. If anything, being able to tap into both the Light and the Dark side makes him even more powerful.

As a Jedi, he was almost single handedly responsible for the Republic’s victory in the Mandalorian Wars, and defeated Mandalore the Ultimate in one-on-one combat, taking his helmet for himself in the aftermath. Though these two sides of Revan eventually leave his mind fractured, his connection to the Dark Side is so great, that he’s able to stay alive for centuries as his body is fueled by pure hatred. But his legacy lives even longer than he does, with Darth Bane’s plan for the Rule of Two coming from a Sith Holocron that Revan leaves behind.

4. Darth Bane

A Sith Lord from the final days of a massive war between the Jedi and the Sith, Darth Bane is often credited with creating the Rule of Two for the Sith. After their numbers were completely decimated, both by the Jedi and from within due to infighting, Bane took it upon himself to restructure how the Sith operate in the hopes of continuing their war against the Jedi in secret. His creation of the Rule of Two tied into his Grand Plan for the Sith that would see them slowly corrupt the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order from the inside over generations until the Sith ruled the galaxy once again.

Though it took centuries for this plan to come to fruition, Bane’s wherewithal to realize that the Sith needed restructuring in order to survive proves that he had the patience and dedication needed to keep their beliefs alive. As many of the Sith Lords on this list have proven, being powerful is not just about how hard and angrily you can swing your saber—it’s also about having the resolve and patience to play the long game. Because even though he died at the hands of his apprentice long before he could see the Sith victorious with his own eyes, his plan was ultimately successful.

3. Darth Maul

Once Darth Sidious’ former apprentice, Darth Maul was presumed to be dead before the Clone Wars even began, his skill with a double-bladed saber not quite enough to stop him from being cut in half by Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Phantom Menace. However, somehow, Darth Maul returned in The Clone Wars animated series, surviving his lethal injury and fall through sheer will and rage. Though he did lose his mind for a bit beforehand, he was still somehow able to gather enough strength to fuse his torso with spider legs fashioned out of scrap and keep himself alive in the garbage pits he fell into. 

Eventually, his mind and body were healed (mostly) by Nightsisters on his home planet of Dathomir and he set out on a warpath to take down the Sith Lord who had abandoned and replaced him. Maul went rogue during the Clone Wars, establishing his own galactic crime ring in the underworld and using it to claim the planet Mandalore for himself for a time. If that’s not the ultimate comeback story, we don’t know what is.

2. Emperor Palpatine

Emperor Palpatine’s goals weren’t necessarily any different than many of the other Sith Lords on this list, but he is the only one who truly succeeded in taking over the galaxy, all while nearly wiping out every Jedi in the galaxy, something that the Sith had been trying to do for centuries. More impressive is that he hid in plain sight from even the most powerful of Jedi Masters for decades, all while holding the most high-profile political position in the Republic. Even after his eventual defeat in Return of the Jedi, he managed to find a way to bring himself back from death, even if it wasn’t to his full power.

Despite his weakened clone form that was unable to physically leave Exegol, he was able to corrupt Ben Solo just as he did with his grandfather and turn him to the Dark Side. The Jedi may not have been totally wiped out of existence by Palpatine, but in the current Star Wars timeline, they have yet to return to their former numbers in the aftermath of his reign of terror, and that will forever be part of his legacy.

1. Darth Vader

Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the Dark Side is truly one of Emperor Palpatine’s greatest achievements as a Sith Lord, turning one of the most powerful Jedi in the galaxy into a vessel of violent anger and hatred. But even though Palpatine is responsible for creating Darth Vader, his reputation thereafter is of his own creation.

It doesn’t take long for Darth Vader to become a terrifying, mythical force of darkness all on his own in the aftermath of Revenge of the Sith, with many across the galaxy fearing his wrath. With all the power of Anakin and none of the compassion, Vader becomes the swift and deadly arm of the Empire, striking down any and everyone who stands in his way.