Lord of the Rings Movies: Every Film in the Franchise

The Lord of the Rings movies are a saga of six main films and one spin-off, adapted from the novels of J.R.R. Tolkien and set in Middle-earth. The how many Lord of the Rings movies index lists each film with its release date and runtime.

The first trilogy is Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002) and Return of the King (2003), all directed by Peter Jackson. Tolkien's books follow a modest hobbit who inherits a ring that the Dark Lord Sauron needs in order to rule, and the long journey to the one place where it can be destroyed. Elijah Wood plays Frodo, Ian McKellen plays Gandalf, Viggo Mortensen plays Aragorn and Sean Astin plays Sam, with Cate Blanchett as Galadriel. The runtimes are 179 minutes, 179 minutes and 201 minutes, so the three films together run to about 9 hours and 20 minutes.

The second trilogy goes back in time. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013) and Battle of the Five Armies (2014) follow a young Bilbo Baggins, played by Martin Freeman, who joins thirteen dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from the dragon Smaug. Guillermo del Toro left the project before Jackson directed it, though del Toro is still credited as one of four writers on the first film.

The spin-off is The War of the Rohirrim (2024), an animated film directed by Kenji Kamiyama. It is set 183 years before the original trilogy and tells the story of King Helm Hammerhand of Rohan, voiced by Brian Cox. It reached US and UK theaters on December 13, 2024.

Is there just one Lord of the Rings? No, because the name covers Tolkien's books, Jackson's films and a television series. The series is The Rings of Power on Prime Video, which tells stories from the much earlier Second Age. The Lord of the Rings timeline shows how all of these fit together.

The scale of the production explains the reputation. The original three films were shot concurrently in New Zealand, with principal photography starting on October 11, 1999 in Wellington, and American Cinematographer reports that photography on The Fellowship of the Ring alone ran 274 days across about 15 months. Return of the King won 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Adding up each film's worldwide gross as reported by Box Office Mojo and The Numbers gives about $5.9 billion for all seven films, and the Lord of the Rings box office page breaks that down film by film.

In the US and UK, the Lord of the Rings movies stream mainly on HBO Max, while in Australia they are spread across several services, and availability changes often. The where to watch Lord of the Rings page holds the full table, and the details below were checked on November 3, 2026 through JustWatch data on TMDB.

In the US, all three Lord of the Rings films, all three Hobbit films and The War of the Rohirrim list HBO Max as a subscription option, and each can also be rented or bought from services such as Amazon Video and Apple TV. In the UK, the original trilogy and the Rohirrim film list HBO Max, while the Hobbit films list Amazon Prime Video. In Australia, the original trilogy is listed on Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Stan, Foxtel Now and HBO Max, the Hobbit films on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, and the Rohirrim film on Netflix.

Is LOTR on Disney? In the US and UK, no. The original trilogy is listed on Disney Plus in Australia only, and the Hobbit films are not. The Rings of Power streams on Prime Video.