The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 adventure movie directed by Peter Jackson, with a running time of 3h 21m. It stars Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen.
Armies gather for the last battle over Middle-earth while Frodo, Sam, and the treacherous Gollum crawl the final miles into Mordor to unmake the One Ring. Peter Jackson closes his Tolkien trilogy with the crowning of a king, the ride of Rohan, and a siege at Minas Tirith staged on a scale few films have matched. Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Andy Serkis anchor a vast ensemble. The film balances thunderous spectacle against the small, exhausted friendship at its center, and its weight comes from how much it asks of ordinary hobbits.
Quick answers
What is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King about?
Armies gather for the last battle over Middle-earth while Frodo, Sam, and the treacherous Gollum crawl the final miles into Mordor to unmake the One Ring. Peter Jackson closes his Tolkien trilogy with the crowning of a king, the ride of Rohan, and a siege at Minas Tirith staged on a scale few films have matched. Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, and Andy Serkis anchor a vast ensemble. The film balances thunderous spectacle against the small, exhausted friendship at its center, and its weight comes from how much it asks of ordinary hobbits.
When was The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King released?
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was released on 17 December 2003.
How long is The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King?
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King runs 3h 21m.
Who made The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King?
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was directed by Peter Jackson.
Where can I watch The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King?
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is available on HBO Max, MAX (Via Amazon Prime), YouTube TV, Amazon, AppleTV and Fandango at Home.
Where to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Stream: HBO Max, MAX (Via Amazon Prime), YouTube TV
Rent: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango at Home, Spectrum On Demand
Official site
Cast
Reviews
The ending. The charge of the Rohirrim. Watched it in the cinema and it felt genuinely enormous. Still does. Nothing else has come close to what Tolkien means when it's done right.
martin rated it 10/10
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A few thoughts on The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Fans of world-spanning fantasy war should play The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt for a lived-in continent of monsters and moral cost, or roam the frozen north of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. On screen, Game of Thrones chases the same clash of kingdoms with darker politics. Howard Shore's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack carries the whole saga in sound.
The rest of Tolkien's trilogy, on film and off
Return of the King closes the story that Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers begin, and Middle-earth keeps expanding well past this trilogy. The Hobbit films rewind to Bilbo's own journey through the same mountains and forests, and the 1978 animated Lord of the Rings offers a very different, stranger take on the same road to Mordor.
Open-world fantasy quests with the same mythic scale
The siege of Minas Tirith and the ride of the Rohirrim set a bar for scale that a handful of fantasy games and one long-running show still chase. The Witcher 3, Skyrim and Elden Ring hand you the same kind of continent-spanning quest, Dragon Age: Origins and God of War build their own mythologies with the same weight, and Game of Thrones brings the armies and politics back to television.
Other studio epics chasing the same sweeping fantasy battle
Jackson stages the fall of Middle-earth's armies as the climax of a decade-long saga, and other studios have chased that same final-battle feeling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 ends its own franchise with a siege of comparable weight, Narnia and Willow build toward similar last stands, and Warcraft and DragonHeart carry the dragons and armor into their own kingdoms.
Epic fantasy quests on the page
The quest that carries Frodo and Sam to Mount Doom has plenty of company on the shelf. Brisingr and Wizard and Glass send their own young heroes across a fantasy landscape roped together with prophecy and old magic, Redwall and Oathbringer scale their battles up to full clashing armies, and The Girl Who Drank the Moon spins a quieter, fairy-tale version of the same rescue.