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90
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47
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24
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76
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63
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40
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67
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90
Persepolis
79
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
78
Control
76
Shotgun Stories
70
Caramel
69
Bank Job, The
68
Honeydripper
67
In Bruges
67
Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The
63
City of Men
63
Signal, The
62
Spiderwick Chronicles, The
61
Stop Loss
59
Under the Same Moon
59
Definitely, Maybe
57
Flawless
57
Hammer, The
54
Charlie Bartlett
54
Tracey Fragments, The
52
Be Kind Rewind
52
My Blueberry Nights
51
Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days & 30 Nights - Hollywood to the Heartland
50
Step Up 2 the Streets
50
Other Boleyn Girl, The
48
Penelope
47
Boarding Gate
47
Semi-Pro
46
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins
46
Bonneville
45
Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns
44
Rails & Ties
44
Chaos Theory
44
Ruins, The
42
Bucket List, The
41
Funny Games
41
Drillbit Taylor
40
Vantage Point
40
Sleepwalking
37
Shutter
36
Remember the Daze
36
Eye, The
36
College Road Trip
35
Jumper
34
10,000 B.C.
33
Superhero Movie
30
Meet Bill
29
Fool's Gold
24
Sex and Death 101
17
Witless Protection
9
Meet the Spartans
xx
Jack and Jill vs. the World
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, The
New Line Cinema
 |
|
FILM:
GAMES:
MPAA RATING: PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and frightening images
Starring
Elijah Wood,
Sean Astin,
Ian McKellen,
Viggo Mortensen,
John Rhys-Davies,
Cate Blanchett,
Orlando Bloom,
and
Liv Tyler
Sauron's forces have laid siege to Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor, in their efforts to eliminate the race of men. The once-great kingdom, watched over by a fading steward, has never been in more desperate need of its king. But can Aragorn (Mortensen) answer the call of his heritage and become what he was born to be? In no small measure, the fate of Middle-earth rests on his broad shoulders. (New Line Cinema)
| GENRE(S): |
Action
|
Drama
|
Fantasy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Frances Walsh
Philippa Boyens
Peter Jackson
J.R.R. Tolkien (novel Return of the King)
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Peter Jackson
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: May 25, 2004
Video: May 25, 2004
Theatrical: December 17, 2003
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
210 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / New Zealand |
Named Best Picture at the 76th Annual Academy Awards, where it picked up a record-tying total of 11 Oscars, including Best Director (Peter Jackson) and Best Adapted Screenplay. Received a Golden Globe as Best Picture (Drama) of 2003, and Jackson earned another for Best Director. Named best picture of 2003 by the New York Film Critics Circle, Southeastern Film Critics Association, Chicago Film Critics Association, Broadcast Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society. Included on the AFI's list of 10 best films of 2003.
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
The conclusion of Peter Jackson's masterwork is passionate and literate, detailed and expansive, and it's conceived with a risk-taking flair for old-fashioned movie magic at its most precious.
100
The Hollywood Reporter
David Hunter
An epic success and a history-making production that finishes with a masterfully entertaining final installment.
100
Newsweek
David Ansen
The second installment was better than the first, and this one is best of all. It has spectacular action scenes and imaginary creatures, and it’s by far the most moving chapter. The performances have deepened.
100
Time
Richard Corliss
The second half of the film elevates all the story elements to Beethovenian crescendo. Here is an epic with literature's depth and opera's splendor -- and one that could be achieved only in movies. What could be more terrific?
100
Variety
Todd McCarthy
Represents that filmmaking rarity -- a third part of a trilogy that is decisively the best of the lot. With epic conflict, staggering battles, striking landscapes and effects, and resolved character arcs all leading to a dramatic conclusion to more than nine hours of masterful storytelling.
100
Empire
Alan Morrison
Those who have walked beside these heroes every step of the way on such a long journey deserve the emotional pay-off as well as the action peaks, and they will be genuinely touched as the final credits roll.
100
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Labeling this as a "movie" is almost an injustice. This is an experience of epic scope and grandeur, amazing emotional power, and relentless momentum.
100
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
Jackson is rare among the makers of epic movies in that he knows how to do the small stuff, too. The Return of the King has “heart”--how else could it pump out all that blood?
100
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
The most emotionally satisfying because, in addition to having both more intimate drama and more spectacular battles, it resolves all of the issues raised before.
100
New York Post
Lou Lumenick
A majestic conclusion to a nine-plus-hours epic that stirs the heart, mind and soul as few films ever have.
100
Chicago Tribune
Michael Wilmington
Like all great fantasies and epics, this one leaves you with the sense that its wonders are real, its dreams are palpable.
100
USA Today
Claudia Puig
As good as each individual movie is, the third film vaults the work into the stratosphere of classic movies. Key characters are enhanced, new civilizations visited and battles fought more intensely, while feelings and motivations are plumbed more deeply and movingly.
100
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
As completely real on the psychological level as its up-to-the-moment visual effects have on the physical.
100
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
It's been a long time since a commercially oriented film with the scale of "King" ended with such an enduring and heartbreaking coda.
100
Slate
David Edelstein
It might be the cinema's most astonishing holy war film. The Lord of the Rings took seven years and an army of gifted artists to execute, and the striving of its makers is in every splendid frame. It's more than a movie--it's a gift.
100
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Jackson had the vision, persistence, insight and patience for this mighty job, plus the smarts to shape stage veterans and overlooked film actors into a seamless cast. He's made himself as immortal as a movie director can be.
100
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
Feels like a miracle, a movie that exceeds even the most formidable expectations without straying from its singular path. All hail this King.
100
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
It rises, all on its own, to the realm of masterwork.
100
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
First and foremost, it soars because its grand design and numerous story problems were worked out half a century ago by a guy named Tolkien, and Jackson was smart enough to realize this.
100
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
This movie is not only a thrilling experience, it closes the book on a truly satisfying trilogy.
100
Dallas Observer
Gregory Weinkauf
This film is a miracle, an extravaganza equal to its predecessors and in some ways more stunning. It is a profound testament to the extraordinary power of moving images and sound.
100
Film Threat
Clint Morris
A masterful moment in cinema. Jackson has created a film that's deemed to be liked –- even loved -- by almost anyone of all ages. It's destined to become a classic series.
100
LA Weekly
Scott Foundas
The deep satisfaction of The Return of the King is in surrendering ourselves to the finale, in letting Jackson's superb storytelling (with due credit to co-screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens) surround us like a blazing campfire tale -- which it does, gloriously.
100
Chicago Reader
Andrea Gronvall
Ties everything together with a dazzling synthesis of pagan animism, heroic quest mythology, orientalism, Pre-Raphaelite imagery, 1950s sci-fi creature features, and Hollywood war epics.
100
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
A phantasmagorical slab of epic entertainment that satisfies on every conceivable level.
100
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
From the acting to the special effects to the landscapes to the cinematography, editing and music, to the details of decor, wardrobe and armaments, we never once feel that we are in anything but the hands of an absolute master of the medium.
100
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
The invisible wizard Peter Jackson makes use of every scene to show us the meaning of magnificence. Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more.
90
Washington Post
Stephen Hunter
Then, finally, there are the endings, all six of them...For us outsiders, it seems like too much of a good thing...But all those are minor rants: The big fact is that The Return of the King puts you there at Waterloo, or Thermopylae or the Bulge, any desperate place where men ran low on blood and iron and ammo, but not on courage.
90
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
I love Jackson's "Rings" saga despite his propensity for whimsical animation whenever he tries to strike a chord of dread or menace.
90
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Keith Phipps
All in all, it's a fitting conclusion to the series, and yet there are disappointments built in. For one, Jackson has opted not to film Tolkien's downbeat "Scouring Of The Shire" epilogue.
88
Boston Globe
Ty Burr
Yet what I felt when the lights came up at the end of this visionary, titanic, relentless experience was something different: a strange relief that it was, at last, over.
88
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
There is little enough psychological depth anywhere in the films, actually, and they exist mostly as surface, gesture, archetype and spectacle. They do that magnificently well, but one feels at the end that nothing actual and human has been at stake.
88
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
This is a film in which ideas resonate as well as action. Gandalf’s words to Pippin about death have a muscular poetry.
80
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
Peter Jackson has not really made a movie of The Lord of the Rings; he has sprung clear of it to forge something new. He has drawn a deep breath, and taken the plunge. [5 January 2004, p. 89]
80
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
In short, this Krakatoa is at once exhausting and riveting. It's a technological marvel, and for those not with the program, a bit of a bore.
78
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
It’s odd and unfortunate, however, that The Return of the King just barely misses the eye-misting emotional wallop of the series’ previous installment, The Two Towers, which had a lyrical subtlety underpinning the vast vistas of growing chaos (and Christopher Lee hardly hurt matters) and hobbits-in-peril.
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Liam Lacey
The [final] battle is vast, and undoubtedly required thousands of hours of matching puppetry, robotics and computer code, but it is not without tedium.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Steven Rea
The Return of the King is too long...The various story lines...come together in stilted, episodic ways. The narrative is less-than-seamless.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
Though an estimable success overall, The Return of the King has several scenes too many and too great a concentration on battles.
70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
Despite its length, the film only starts feeling as long at the end -- or, more correctly, ends. Serious fans of the novels will be prepared for the serial codicils, but the uninitiated are likely to think the film is over several times before it actually is.
70
Film Threat
Kevin Carr
If The Return of the King was 2 1/2 hours long, it would have rocked. It would have been better than The Two Towers, which is the best film in the series.
50
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Add a lot of dull acting -- except Sir Ian McKellen and Andy Serkis -- and you have an uneven movie with yawns aplenty.
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 887 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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