I honestly feel bad putting this one so low.

This game is different from the others because it introduced stuff that felt impossible at the time. Swimming—not the surface bobbing you get in some games, not the instant “you fell in, you’re done” routine, but real swimming. Underwater. Some characters can even walk on the ocean floor, straight out of the movies. 

It also has those wonderfully weird LEGO moments, like characters playing instruments that make everyone nearby break into uncontrollable dancing.

Even with all that, it doesn’t quite take the podium for me. I like it. I respect it. But the movies never landed as hard for me as the other franchises on this list. If I understood the films as well as I understood the game, I might love it even more.

That’s why it lands here.

(It sits in its case at 100% completion.)

Yes, this one is based on an animated movie and a TV show—not live action—but it still feels like it belongs in the LEGO movie-game conversation.

This might be the game I played the most, even if it isn’t my favorite. It felt advanced compared to earlier LEGO “Star Wars” games: bigger maps, flashier lightsaber fights and a sense that the galaxy actually opened up. Flying ships, switching between light and dark side missions—as a kid, it felt like leveling up.

Years later, watching “The Clone Wars” helped the game click even more. I appreciated characters and storylines I barely understood the first time around.

I spent much of my physical LEGO building time in the world of Star Wars, and this game begs the question—what if the worlds on the screen could be translated to real life?

This game turns the gears on the idea of a physical brick-world as large as the game.

But here’s the thing: the game it’s almost too complex to be my go-to nostalgia pick. I love it, but it doesn’t have the same simple, automatic comfort as the games above it.

That’s why it lands at No. 4.

(Also part of the reason it’s not 100% complete.)

I played this game before I watched the movies, which made the film experience feel like a series of spoilers I already knew.

Gameplay-wise, this one leans hard into pure fun. It doesn’t care if something is realistic. It cares if it’s funny. When a game lets you drive a jeep off a cliff and keep going like nothing happened, you’re not playing for accuracy—you’re playing for the vibe.

It’s also one of the most “LEGO” LEGO games: chaotic, goofy and happy to throw in random bits (like flinging bananas at monkeys) just because it can.

It builds on creativity. Every secret minikit you unlock builds into a massive project at the completion of a movie-world.

One of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was the level builder function unlocked as you complete the game. The though of not only playing in these worlds, but making your own was undeniably fun.

The only reason this game isn’t higher is personal: the “Indiana Jones” movies aren’t as nostalgic for me as “Star Wars” or “The Lord of the Rings.” The game is a blast, but the franchise doesn’t hit the same emotional button.

So it takes third.

(But yes—it is 100% completed.)

Imagine a galaxy, not so far away, just one click from building itself in front of your eyes.

Planets. Spaceships. Droids. Lasers.

A world where the impossible becomes possible.

I didn’t fully appreciate this one until a few years ago, when it suddenly became the go-to disc in our red-and-black Wii Mini.

This game is basically a LEGO “Star Wars” museum: the cantina hub, the iconic sound effects, the cutscenes that are burned into my brain and the kind of hidden jokes and Easter eggs you only notice after your fifth replay. It’s the definition of replayable.

Faces of characters are hidden in the levels and secret builds that give you minikits. In the first scene of the first level, you can use “the force” to make chairs around a table dance to cantina band music.

These hidden secrets are not just required to complete the game. But they are hidden joys. Hidden moments of laughter and happiness.

And it’s not just the jokes and the levels—it’s the experience of chasing perfection. The “just one more” urge. The satisfaction of finally unlocking that character you’ve been grinding for.

The question of a physical world driven by the “Clone Wars” game starts to click with this one.

Its impossible.

LEGO’s, the building blocks they are, break the bank. A physical world to the extent of this game would cost an unacheivable amount of money, but the Wii disc—not so much. 

These games were easy, cost-efficient alternatives to an ideal physical and creative world, playable on a screen.

It’s a close, uncontested second.

(This game also sits in perfection.)

I read the books, watched the movies and then played the LEGO game—which is probably why this one feels like a full-circle favorite.

If “The Complete Saga” is replayable, “LEGO The Lord of the Rings” is livable. The free roam blew my mind. One moment you’re sprinting through Caradhras. The next, you’re fighting orcs in Mordor. It felt like Middle-earth wasn’t just a set of levels—it was a place you could wander.

It was yours. A world you fought for and only until you prevailed could you live free.

The realm of Lord of the Rings is my favorite followed to Star Wars, and to be honest I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s the fantasy just unrealistic enough to feel somewhat real, not quite to the level of aliens and sabers of light, but real humans. Maybe it’s the classic-ness of the story, or the immense lore behind the world.

This game just clicks for me.

One of the coolest details: it’s one of the few LEGO games that uses actual speech, and the lines come from the film performances. It’s a small thing, but it makes the game feel like you’re playing inside the movies instead of just watching LEGO characters parody them.

Shooting arrows into ports to climb to a secret segment in a level as Legolas or fighting Gollum for the “one ring” as Frodo in the final climax of the story. The characters just feel more alive with their actors real voices.

I got it as a Christmas gift during covid, and I was completely obsessed—the kind of obsessed where you know the map better than you know your own neighborhood.

The game was a de-stresser at the time. A way to be free of the stress of the time and fight different battles (with uncharacteristically funny LEGO violence which isn’t really violence at all). A chance at doing something good at a time where you couldn’t really do much at all. A place to roam when you couldn’t really go anywhere.

Maybe that’s a reason I love this game so much, or maybe it’s just simply a love of the story and the characters.

That’s why it’s No. 1.

(And yes. Also 100%.)