SP FX: The Empire Strikes Back is a television documentary special which originally aired on CBS on September 22, 1980. Hosted by actor Mark Hamill, it is a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of the special effects in the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back, which was released that year. The special was written by Richard Schickel and directed by Robert Guenette, who had both previously worked on the 1977 special The Making of Star Wars.

Richard Warren Schickel was an American film historian, journalist, author, documentarian, and film and literary critic. He was a film critic for Time from 1965–2010, and also wrote for Life and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. His last writings about film were for Truthdig.