The Empire Strikes Back has been voted the best movie of all time by more than 250,000 film fans.
It pushed Francis Ford Coppola’s mafia masterpiece, The Godfather, into second place out of 301 titles.
Batman sequel The Dark Knight was third, followed by The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction.
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back came out in 1980, three years after the first Star Wars film.
The franchise’s creator George Lucas said winning was a privilege. He added: `The fans like The Empire Strikes Back the best, partly because it is so dark.’
The top ten in Empire magazine’s poll was rounded off by the first Star Wars, the first part of The Lord of the Rings, Jaws, Raiders Of The Lost Ark and Inception. Empire’s editor Mark Dinning said he was `delighted, if not surprised’ at the result.
