What is Darth Vaders Noooooooooooo?

It is the long, anguished 'Nooooo!' scream Darth Vader lets out at the end of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, which the internet turned into a catchphrase and exploitable audio meme.

Where did Darth Vaders Noooooooooooo come from?

The line is from the 2005 film Revenge of the Sith. It was first memed on May 20th, 2005 by YTMND user Redily, whose page 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!' looped the audio over a still from the film.

What does Darth Vaders Noooooooooooo mean?

In the film Vader is reacting to Palpatine telling him Padmé is dead, but online it is used as a comically over-the-top 'no' for any small disappointment.

How do you use Darth Vaders Noooooooooooo?

People commonly drop the audio clip over videos of things going wrong, type 'NOOOOOOOO' with a long tail of Os in chat, or link nooooooooooooooo.com, a single-serving site that plays the scream on a button press.

Is Darth Vaders Noooooooooooo still popular?

It is a classic 2000s audio meme that is still recognized and reused, helped along by the 2011 Blu-ray of Return of the Jedi adding the same scream to the Emperor's death scene and by long-running edits like Nathan Dubuc's French version passing 7.5 million views.

Darth Vaders Noooooooooooo

2005catchphraseclassic

Published August 17, 2026

Darth Vader's 'Nooooo!' is the long, anguished scream from the final scene of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released in May 2005. The internet turned the clip into one of its earliest exploitable audio memes, spawning YTMND pages, YouTube Poops, single-serving sites, and reaction GIFs.

star wars audio memes ytmnd memes single serving site memes movie quote memes

Overview

Darth Vader's 'Nooooo!' is the drawn-out scream from the closing minutes of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, delivered by Vader after Emperor Palpatine tells him Padmé Amidala is dead1. On the internet, the clip became a foundational exploitable audio meme, remixed into YouTube Poops, reaction GIFs, and image macros for the better part of two decades3.

The line is played completely straight in the film, but the delivery, the mirrored black helmet, and George Lucas's decision to end a tragic sequence on a single shouted syllable made it read as unintentionally funny almost immediately. Lucas later doubled down by splicing the same 'Nooooo!' into the 2011 Blu-ray re-release of Return of the Jedi, right before Vader throws the Emperor down the reactor shaft, which reignited the joke for a second generation3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Star Wars Episode III (film) / YTMND (viral spread)

Date

2005

Revenge of the Sith opened on May 19th, 2005, and the audio was memed within 24 hours. On May 20th, 2005, YTMND user Redily posted a page titled 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!', pairing a still from the newly released film with the looped Vader scream2. The page cleared a million views and was later inducted into the YTMND Hall of Fame3.

The first widely watched YouTube version arrived on September 17th, 2006, when user Robotchicken09 uploaded a clip titled 'darth vader says NOOOOOOO', which pulled roughly 2.8 million views, 20,000 likes, and 5,500 comments over the following years1.

How It Spread

More YTMND remixes followed through the mid-2000s, including 'Vader Coaster', 'Vader Chapstick', and 'Vader turns on the lights'3. On December 1st, 2009, the single-serving site nooooooooooooooo.com launched with exactly one feature: a big button that fires the Vader scream on demand, which turned the audio into a one-click office reaction tool4.

Editor mashups kept the audio in rotation. On September 10th, 2011, YouTuber CineWeekly cut Vader's yell into a montage of dramatic movie scenes and pulled close to 400,000 views3. A French-dubbed cut of the scream uploaded by Nathan Dubuc on January 4th, 2017 broke out even harder and passed 7.5 million views5.

The scene picked up a parallel life through 'Do Not Want', the bootleg Chinese subtitle version of Revenge of the Sith documented by blogger Jeremy Winterson on June 7th, 2005, where Vader's 'Nooooo!' was translated as 'Do not want'7. On October 5th, 2015, Reddit user spikesya posted an in-universe defense of the scene in r/FanTheories that cleared 1,700 upvotes at 91% before being archived6.

How to Use This Meme

Typical usage is audio-first. People drop the isolated 'Nooooo!' clip over a video of any mildly bad outcome for comic overreaction, whether that's someone missing a shot, a sports team losing, or a character in another film dying. A common convention is to sync the scream to the exact frame of the disappointment. As a text reply, users often just type 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO' with an escalating number of Os, and pointing someone at nooooooooooooooo.com is still a shorthand for 'this deserves the Vader response'4.