The 15 Most Expensive Lego Sets You Can Buy Now

LEGO is a fun hobby, but it is also an expensive hobby. "Playing well," as it turns out, can be a prohibitively costly affair.

LEGO rationalizes its prices by pointing to the quality of its products: every set comes with the written guarantee that the bricks are "rigorously tested to ensure that every building set meets the highest safety and quality standards." There's also the third party factor; any licensed set gets a "tax" on top of the standard rate. That's why a Disney third-party set, with fewer pieces, will cost more than a LEGO first-party set, with more pieces. We're paying for name and brand recognition.

But nostalgia is a powerful thing. And since most of us can only afford to buy a few of these massive sets each year, it's good to see what's already out there, and what's coming down the pipe, so we can plan accordingly.

In that spirit, here are the 15 most expensive LEGO sets that you can purchase, right now. They're all massive, so even if you have the money to purchase them, make sure you have the space to display them.

A homage to the original LEGO castle from 1984, the Lion Knights' Castle opens up to fully realized interiors. The set features a working drawbridge, a water wheel that turns, an armory, a dungeon, and a whopping 22 Minifigures.

This set is 1:8 scale to the actual car that inspired it, and its butterfly doors flip up to allow passengers inside. The LEGO Ferrari also includes working steering and a facsimile of the car's V12 engine.

See our list of the best LEGO car sets for more like this.

Another 1:8 scale model car, the LEGO Lamborghini has scissor doors, swooping curves, front and rear suspension, a V12 engine with moving pistons, and a unique, lime-green coloring that catches the eye.

If you like LEGO's Expert line of modular buildings, how about four distinct magical buildings, packaged together in a single set? Inspired by the Harry Potter books and movies, Diagon Alley is a details-rich tribute to the magical Wizarding World and the enchanted shops in London.

See our list of the best Harry Potter LEGO sets for more like this.

One of the most enduring sets in the LEGO collection, the Hogwarts Castle has been around for years, and its retirement keeps getting postponed due to high demand; the current, tentative plan is to retire it by the end of 2024. The set is microscaled, but it contains four full-sized Minifigures of the Hogwarts Founders.

An operable model bulldozer is nothing to sneeze at. And LEGO outdid itself with this model, a steerable vehicle that rides on treads and can move its blade up and down. It also looks and feels heavy—an essential quality for a powerhouse vehicle like this one.

LEGO has designed and released multiple versions of the Hogwarts Express, but never this big (1:32 scale), and never with this much detail. The Hogwarts Express comes with 22 Minifigures across four different ages of Harry, so you can stage scenes from Books 1, 3, 6 , and 7. Most crucially, this set contains epilogue Minifigures of adult Harry, adult Ginny, and their kids Lily Luna and Albus Severus.

This is one of LEGO's most impressive and visually stunning—an example of what the company's designers are capable of when they abandon all pretense of a "playable" experience and focus almost exclusively on aesthetics and visual presentation. Rivendell comes with a complete Fellowship of the Ring, with Minifigures of every member from Merry to Gandalf to Legolas. Check out our feature in which we build LEGO Rivendell, as well as our interview with the LEGO Rivendell lead designer.

One of the most famous mechs in Marvel history, the "Hulkbuster" suit is Tony Starks' ace in the hole. It's for when all other options have failed, and the amount of damage it would cause Is less than the amount of damage from doing nothing. The LEGO Hulkbuster possesses articulable limbs, and it comes with three light bricks that illuminate the chest arc reactor and the repulsors on both hands.

See our list of the best LEGO Marvel sets for more like this.

The Colosseum was, up until very recently, the largest LEGO set in the company's history (more on that later). It is a ponderous build, with many repeated, redundant elements. But the final, cumulative effect is stunning—a beautiful tribute to the ambition, scale and decadence of the Roman Empire. Check out our LEGO Colosseum building feature for more.

The Mandalorian TV show is one of the only things that the Star Wars fandom universally loves. And correspondingly, the Razor Crest—Mando's signature ship—has become instantly recognizable. It has none of the prequel trilogy's sleek design; the Razor Crest seems almost stubbornly anti-flight. This Ultimate Collector Series set captures the Razor Crest's unwieldy shape, and it includes a carbonite freezing chamber, an escape pod, and removable engine blocks that show off the ship's guts.

See our list of the best Star Wars LEGO sets for more like this.

At 10,001 pieces, the Eiffel Tower is the biggest set that LEGO has ever released, with the Colosseum now coming in second with 9036 pieces. It is a repetitive build, of course—its use of arches, support beams, and cross-beams mirrors that of the actual building. But like The Colosseum, you're buying and building this for the end result—a beautiful model of a real-life attraction that's nearly five feet tall.

We built the LEGO Titanic when it came out, and the designers treated it with the seriousness and reverence it deserved. There were no Minifigures—just the Titanic itself—with all its riggings—on a stand that's designed to look like classical wood. Separating the "unsinkable" ship into three segments gives you a good look at its cross-section; you can see the dining room, the crew quarters, and the boiler room. And you can also see the piston engines, which pump up and down when you turn the boat's propellers.

It's always more common to see sprawling LEGO sets—models with massive lengths and widths that cover a large surface area. It's much less common to see tall LEGO sets, and I would imagine that it's harder to design a set vertically than horizontally. When building something tall, one must ensure that the structure can support its own weight and maintain its balance, in addition to looking good.

The LEGO AT-AT Walker manages all three of these things—especially impressive, since the original movie prop was unwieldy to begin with. It stands approximately two feet tall, and it comes with nine LEGO Minifigures. The chassis, however, has room for a 40-man Stormtrooper platoon, should you so choose.

It's difficult to imagine that a LEGO set would ever cost more than this Ultimate Collector Series edition of the Millennium Falcon. But then again, this set is something special, and its longevity speaks for itself. This particular model launched in 2017—nearly six years ago, which makes it way past the age when LEGO retires its old sets to make space on the shelves for new ones.

It shows how far ahead of its time this set was at the time of its release. It shows how popular it continues to be; this is the definitive Star Wars ship. And it carries an impressive implication: that no LEGO designer has bothered to design a new one, on this scale, because the current model is so good. If you can only buy one massive set this year, this legendary "hunk of junk" is an excellent choice.

Looking for more LEGO? Take a look at our guides to the best LEGO sets for adults and the best LEGO sets for kids .

Kevin Wong is a commerce freelance writer for IGN.