The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
★★★★★ — The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
There are films you admire, and then there are films that make you feel genuinely lucky to have been alive when they came out. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the latter. I don't use the word flawless lightly, but I'm using it here, and I mean every letter of it.
What Peter Jackson pulled off across this trilogy is staggering enough on its own, but sticking the landing on something this vast, this emotionally loaded, this technically ambitious? That's where so many great trilogies have stumbled and fallen flat on their face. Not here. The Return of the King doesn't just close the story, it earns every single thing it asks you to feel. The battles are overwhelming in the best possible way. The quieter moments, the ones between friends who've carried each other through the darkest imaginable circumstances, hit even harder. It's the combination of those two things that makes the film so extraordinary.
Every performance lands. There's not a weak link in the cast. You believe in these people completely, and after two films of investment, seeing them through to the end carries genuine weight. The visual effects, which you'd forgive for looking dated two decades on, mostly still hold up beautifully. There's a craft and a care in every frame that you can feel, like the whole production knew exactly what it was making and refused to cut corners on any of it.
I've written about where it all began with The Fellowship of the Ring, and about the extraordinary middle chapter over in my review of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002). Each film is brilliant in its own right, but Return of the King is the one that justifies the whole undertaking. It's the destination that makes the journey mean something.
Then there are the endings. Yes, plural. People love to take the mickey out of the multiple endings, and look, I get it on paper. But in the moment? I don't want it to stop. After three films and all those hours with these characters, a little extra time to say goodbye isn't self-indulgence, it's generosity. Jackson earned those endings. We earned them.
The Oscars don't always get it right. Often they get it spectacularly wrong. But when The Return of the King swept the board and took home all eleven of its nominations, including Best Picture, it was one of those rare moments where the Academy looked at the right film and did the right thing. Few films have ever deserved it more. This wasn't a consolation prize for the trilogy, this was a genuine recognition that something historic had been made.
It's worth saying as well: compared to what came later with The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and its sequels, Return of the King shows just how different things can be when a filmmaker is working at the absolute top of his game with the right material, the right passion, and the right team around him. The contrast is stark.
I've seen this film more times than I can count, and it gets me every time. The charge of the Rohirrim. The lighting of the beacons. The Grey Havens. Every time. If you've somehow not seen this trilogy, stop whatever you're doing and fix that. And if you have seen it, you already know exactly what I'm talking about.
Five stars. No question. Not even close.
Rating: ★★★★★ | Year: 2003 | Watched: 2025-04-27
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · HBO Max
Rent: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Google Play Movies
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi
Watch in the US
Stream: HBO Max Amazon Channel · YouTube TV · HBO Max
Rent: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US
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Related on Movies With Macca
More from Peter Jackson: King Kong (2005) · The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014) · The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) · The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
More with Elijah Wood: Green Street Hooligans (2005) · The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) · The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
More from New Zealand: What We Do in the Shadows (2014) · Mortal Engines (2018) · King Kong (2005) · 'Aho'eitu (2015)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More adventure: Alice in Wonderland (1951) · The Eagle (1925) · Louisiana Story (1948) · The General (1926)
More fantasy: Viy (1967) · Alice in Wonderland (1951) · Mononoke the Movie: The Phantom in the Rain (2024) · Mononoke the Movie: Chapter II - The Ashes of Rage (2025)
