On the shipbuilding world of Corellia, a young man named Han dreams of escaping his life of petty crime and forges a plan to flee with his lover, Qi'ra. When their plans go awry, Han escapes on his own, vowing to return for her. Driven by the dream of becoming a pilot and acquiring a ship, he joins the Imperial Navy as a flight cadet. However, he is expelled from the flight academy for insubordination and is forced to serve as an infantryman on a backwater world, where he encounters a group of criminals posing as Imperial soldiers, led by Tobias Beckett. Han attempts to join them, and despite initial reluctance, Beckett recognizes his potential and accepts him into the crew for a high-stakes heist.

The crew plans to steal a shipment of valuable coaxium, a hyperfuel, on the planet Vandor. The heist goes wrong, leading to an encounter with the marauders known as the Cloud-Riders, and the loss of the coaxium. Beckett is now beholden to the crime lord Dryden Vos, the leader of the Crimson Dawn syndicate, to whom the shipment was promised. To settle the debt, Han concocts a dangerous plan to steal unrefined coaxium from the mines of Kessel. The mission becomes personal when Qi'ra, who is now working for Vos, re-enters Han's life. To pull off the Kessel heist, the crew needs a fast ship, leading Han to encounter Lando Calrissian, a smooth-talking gambler and pilot who owns a ship capable of doing the Kessel Run in record time.