Star Wars: Top 10 Rebel Alliance Ships, Ranked

Star Wars would be impossible without starships, and the legendary franchise has some of the most iconic ships in all of science-fiction. The very first shot of the film series introduces two of them. The Tantive IV Rebel Blockade Runner is dwarfed in size by the Imperial Star Destroyer, but the little ship looms large in the memory of fans around the world.

The Rebel Alliance didn’t have the resources or the numbers of the Galactic Empire, but they had some of the coolest ships. They keep adding to the ranks with new films and television series, building out an epic fleet.

10 Nebulon-B Frigate

Fans get their first look at the Nebulon-B frigate in The Empire Strikes Back, a truly classic film that is coming back to theaters during its fortieth anniversary. The frigate is one of the most unique ships in the entire saga.

It’s shaped something like an old key, with a spindly fuselage connecting the squat engines to a fanged kind of forward hull. The ship featured mostly in background shots but was prevalent in Return of the Jedi and Rogue One as well.

9 Y-Wing

The Y-Wing plays a vital role in the original Star Wars film, A New Hope. The bombers take on the Death Star with the X-Wings and get their shot. It doesn’t work, but the fighters remain very popular with fans.

The simple design combines a snake-esque cockpit with a very stripped down fuselage, indicative of the lived-in aesthetic of the Star Wars universe. Y-Wings continue to play a role in the saga, featuring in Return of the Jedi, Rogue One, and in an earlier form, Clone Wars.

8 B-Wing

The B-Wing starfighter debuted in Return of the Jedi but hasn’t featured nearly as much as some other ships in the Rebel fleet. Still, it’s one of the coolest designs.

The unique craft features a gimbaled cockpit on one end of what is more or less a giant wing. Smaller wings extend from the body, all of which intersect with the engine stack. The ship does appear briefly in some shots of the final battle of The Rise of Skywalker, a different kind of cameo hidden in the movie.

7 Snowspeeder

The Rebel Snowspeeder has only ever been featured once in the nine-film Skywalker saga, but it’s easily one of the most dynamic and memorable ships in the franchise. The modified speeder allowed the Rebel Alliance to operate in the frigid environment of Hoth, and the epic battle they engage in with the Imperial AT-AT Walkers is just one of the ways The Empire Strikes Back makes the saga better.

The Snowspeeder was the first and one of the few two-man fighters seen in the films. It wouldn’t be until The Force Awakens that fans would see two people piloting a single fighter.

6 A-Wing

The A-Wing debuted in Return of the Jedi during the epic Battle of Endor (where the Ewoks helped out big time). The sleek fighter added a brand new dimension to the Rebel fleet, which to that point had mostly been defined by a craft that seemed hauled out of a boneyard.

The A-Wing was new, modern, and fast. The fighter evened up things considerably for the Rebels against the super-fast TIE Fighters. The fighter also inadvertently brought down a Super Star Destroyer, breaking the back of the Imperial fleet.

5 The Ghost

The Ghost is the main ship from the Disney XD animated series Star Wars: Rebels, and it’s one of the best ships in the Rebel fleet. The ship belongs to the one and only Hera Syndulla and comes from the same design lineage as the Millenium Falcon.

The ship was a cargo vessel at one point, and like the Falcon was heavily modified to operate behind enemy lines on Lothal. A 360-degree dorsal laser cannon turret ties the ship to the Y-Wing from the original Ralph McQuarrie concept art.

4 The Profundity

Rogue One connected to the original Star Wars in big ways. It also greatly expanded the Rebel fleet before promptly destroying it. One of the biggest and most visually dynamic new ships present at the Battle of Scarif is the Profundity.

This Mon Calamari ship recalls the graceful lines of those introduced in Return of the Jedi (even though Admiral Ackbar was nowhere to be seen). It plays a vital role in obtaining the Death Star plans but ultimately falls to the wrath of Darth Vader at the very end of the film.

3 Tantive IV Blockade Runner

The Tantive IV is the very first ship fans see in Star Wars, and it plays a major role in the saga. Though it’s captured by the Empire straight away, it later plays a role in Rogue One as the vehicle of Princess Leia, who would have been in the movie a bit more if not for Jyn Erso.

The small ship also appears in The Rise of Skywalker, where it’s unclear whether or not it’s destroyed in the final battle over Exegol. The junior novelization indicates that it was, while it’s not spelled out in the movie.

2 U-Wing

By far the most interesting new ship introduced in the Disney-era of Star Wars was the U-Wing. This hybrid fighter/troop transport looks like it would have fit right in during the original trilogy, and fills a spot that was missing in the Rebel fleet.

Transports factored heavily in the assembled fleet, but not a specific troop transport for surface battles. The U-Wing features a fantastic moveable wing design, allowing it to take on two very different configurations.

1 X-Wing

As cool as all the new ships are – and there’s always a cool new ship – it’s hard to beat the original. If its brief and tantalizing appearance in the season two trailer of The Mandalorian is any indication, the X-Wing remains the workhorse of the Rebel fleet.

The X-Wing plays a critical role in every major battle of the original trilogy, taking out two Death Stars in the process. Its successor also is the main craft in the Resistance fleet thirty years later.

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