The 20 Best Lego Sets of All-Time

Full disclosure, I’m not a diehard Harry Potter fan, but this is too cool of a set not to include! These sets connect with the LEGO Creator modular buildings (as I talked about with other sets on this list)  and come with four connectable buildings to create your own LEGO-scale Diagon Alley. This comes with so many figures and is so incredibly detailed; if you’re a Harry Potter fan, this is a must-have set.

This 2006 set is a bit dated aesthetically, but that’s part of what makes it so cool. LEGO hasn’t remade this ship since this iteration, so it’s a bit of a collector’s item (hence the hefty price tag on the secondhand market these days). It’s obviously not as detailed or sleek as some of the more recent Star Wars sets, but its understated style and rarity make it among my favorites of all-time.

LEGO has done a couple of versions of the Sandcrawler, but this Ultimate Collectors series edition reigns supreme. After the explosion in popularity of The Mandalorian, the Jawas’ Sandcrawler, one of the most iconic vehicles in the Star Wars franchise, saw an increase in sales.

This set is also super detailed on the interior, making it a difficult but extremely rewarding build. It’s absolutely gigantic (22.9 x 18.9 x 6.7 in), so make sure you’ve got space before building this set, which comes with a whopping 14 minifigs —from Luke and the R5 unit with a bad motivator to those pesky Jawas.

Aside from the Millenium Falcon, you’d be hard-pressed to name a more recognizable Star Wars ship than Luke Skywalker’s Red Five X-Wing. This set is from the Ultimate Collector series, so it’s super detailed and definitely requires some time and prowess to build. “Red five, standing by.”

This R2-D2 model, at the time, came out of nowhere. LEGO hadn’t put out anything like this bust/model since the late 90s when they’d released a buildable Darth Maul bust and a Yoda, which both debuted before LEGO Star Wars’ prime. This R2-D2 model, which dropped in 2012, has since become a major collector’s item because of how beautifully it displays (it comes with a stickered-on plaque and an additional R2-D2 Minifigure) and has, understandably, become super valuable.

This is another one from the LEGO Creator modular series. This set was actually released as a celebratory set for the 10th anniversary of the modular series. It’s bigger than the standard modular series sets and is built to include a flower shop, bakery, and numerous apartment buildings over the storefronts. This is such a great culmination of the modular series and a really great addition for anyone building out a LEGO city. Combine it with your other modules and you’ve got yourself an ever-growing city block!

This is a super rare set, mostly because there are very few medieval sets floating around to begin with. Most modern medieval/castle-themed sets are fantasy-based, as opposed to this set’s more historically-accurate take on the medieval age. This is, at the time of writing this, my favorite of the medieval LEGO sets. Simply looking at it feels like taking a trip to the renaissance fair!

This is another entry from the Ultimate Collectors Series and is an absolute must-have for Star Wars fanatics. Like with all of the sets in this UCS line, this model is aimed at adults—hence the high price point and elevated build complexity. After the re-emergence of Boba Fett and the Slave 1, this set is one that is bound to go up in value over time. 

This could have easily placed higher on the list, mostly because of the ingenious array of functioning gadgets included in the set. It’s almost a scale model of the Nintendo Entertainment System and comes with a Super Mario cartridge in addition to a buildable controller. You also get to build a vintage 80s cassette TV with a crank, which moves your Mario “piece” across the screen, simulating a real play session on the nostalgic entertainment system. This one is too cool not to include in the “top ten.”

This list couldn’t be complete without a shoutout to the Millennium Falcon. They’ve done two Ultimate Collectors series editions of the Falcon, one back in 2007 and this one in 2017. This was the largest LEGO set of all time until 2018’s Hogwarts Castle set bumped it from its spot. Now it rests firmly in the third-place position thanks to 2020’s Colosseum taking the #1 spot with over 9,000 pieces. This set allows you to recreate scenes from the original trilogy and the recent films; it includes numerous minifigs, including Han Solo, Leia, Chewbacca, C-3PO, Rey, and Finn. You can also change out the satellite dish to the corresponding film trilogy. Like with many of the UCS builds, this one has a complex interior, so you can open the ship and tinker around with the Falcon’s iconic interior. It even comes with a little Mynock figurine (the critter that attacks the Falcon when they stop momentarily during their chase in The Empire Strikes Back) for full cohesion with the film.

This is another modular set, so you can add it to your growing LEGO city—and the growing list of modulars in this countdown! The Palace Cinema is meant to be a corner building and perfectly encapsulates the vintage Hollywood fee it seeks to represent. The first floor has concessions and the second floor has the movie theater seating area. The theming on this set is just so perfect; this makes for a great set that has earned its place in the top ten portion of this list.

This set is absolutely insane. It’s modeled after the Magic Kingdom castle from Florida’s Walt Disney World and comes replete with a wide range of Disney movie-themed rooms. There’s a callback to Aladdin (with his signature rug hanging on the wall) and even a chest with Rapunzel’s hairbrush, to name just a few. It also comes with several iconic Disney minifigs, including an exclusive Mickey, Minnie, and Tinker Bell, as well as Donald Duck and Daisy Duck.

This is the ultimate LEGO playset. This 2016 iteration of the Death Star includes everything you could ask for. You can spin it around and see all of the Death Star’s iconic scenes, like Palpatine’s throne room (where you can drop him down the reactor shaft just like the movie!), the garbage compactor, and Leia’s detention block. There’s even a slide from the detention block area in the garbage compactor and a button to make the walls start closing in. It’s a super expensive set due to all of its amazing features and the high piece count, but it’s worth it if you want a faithful LEGO Death Star model in your home—and really, who doesn’t?

You might be surprised that the number one spot isn’t a Star Wars set, but this Ghostbusters model really has it all. You can open the sides to reveal three distinct floors of the firehouse from the film, chock full of Easter Eggs and references to the pair of classic films. There are bedrooms, the haunted toaster, the team’s firepole, and more. If you were lucky enough to cop the Ecto I set from LEGO Ideas in 2014, the car could even be backed into the garage of this set for safekeeping. This set comes with minifigs of every character you could want, including numerous ghosts and the entire Ghostbusters team, complete with exclusive arm printing. It’s so faithful to the movie and such a fun playset; this is without a doubt my number one set of all-time.