‘Star Wars’ Heads to IMAX for the First Time Ever With a Newly Restored 50th Anniversary Re-Release

Hitting theaters February 2027.

Summary

Lucasfilm and Disney will present the original 'Star Wars' in IMAX for the first time as part of the film's 50th anniversary

A newly restored version of the 1977 original, later renamed 'Star Wars: A New Hope,' anchors the re-release

The film will play in both digital and film formats, including at a select number of IMAX 70mm locations

Star Wars (1977) is coming to IMAX for the first time in its history, as Lucasfilm and Disney mark the film’s 50th anniversary with a newly restored re-release. The movie that reshaped modern cinema will reach theaters on February 19, 2027, giving audiences a chance to see the original in a format it has never occupied before.

For the first time ever, the film that started it all will be presented in IMAX, offered both in digital and on film. Most significant for purists, the restoration will screen across a select number of IMAX 70mm film locations, the large-format film standard prized for its resolution and scale, while also playing in select theaters for a limited time. Pairing a 1977 title with 70mm film projection places the original in the premium exhibition tier that a new generation of moviegoers has been seeking out.

Underpinning the release is a fresh restoration of the original cut, the version later renamed Star Wars: A New Hope. That restoration matters as much as the format: bringing a nearly five-decade-old film up to the fidelity IMAX demands is what makes the first-ever presentation possible in the first place, and it gives longtime fans a reason to return to a movie they already know frame by frame.

The re-release also functions as a milestone marker. It falls within Lucasfilm’s yearlong 50th anniversary celebration, positioning the original film as the centerpiece of a broader campaign around the franchise’s half-century. Fifty years after it first arrived and rewrote what a blockbuster could be, the original Star Wars is being handed the kind of large-format treatment usually reserved for new tentpole releases, reframing a piece of film history as a current theatrical event.

The newly restored Star Wars (1977) returns to theaters February 19, 2027, screening in IMAX for the first time, including at a select number of IMAX 70mm film locations.