Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of the Rings

Samwise Gamgee is a hobbit of the Shire, the gardener and closest companion of Frodo Baggins, and the film credits list him simply as Sam. He is played by Sean Astin, who is billed fourth in each of the three Lord of the Rings films, behind Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen.

He first appears in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), directed by Peter Jackson. Gandalf works out that the ring Bilbo has passed to Frodo is the One Ring and tells Frodo to leave the Shire, so Frodo sets out with his gardener friend Sam. Merry and Pippin join them soon afterward, and the four hobbits are hunted by Sauron's Black Riders from the first stretch of the road.

Sam comes from the novels of J. R. R. Tolkien, which Jackson's trilogy adapts. In the books, his father is Hamfast Gamgee, and Sam's gardening work ties him to Bag End, the Hobbiton home that Bilbo leaves behind when he passes the Ring to Frodo. The films credit only Sam, so the family background is a book detail rather than something the credits name.

Sam is not a wizard, a warrior or a king, and the saga gives him a central place anyway. Think of the friend who carries the bags, remembers the map and never complains about the weather: that is his role in the story. The same character runs through the whole trilogy, which makes him one of the steadiest presences among the Lord of the Rings characters, and the full list of actors sits on the Lord of the Rings cast page.

Sam belongs to the original trilogy only. The Hobbit films and The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim (2024) tell earlier stories, so he is not part of their arcs.

Sam's most important relationship is with Frodo Baggins, and the films present it as devotion between friends rather than romance. Sam is the one who will not let Frodo walk into Mordor alone, and the two sequels repeat that promise in action.

His second defining relationship is with Gollum, the creature who guides the hobbits in The Two Towers and The Return of the King. Gollum secretly plots to betray them and leads Frodo toward Shelob, and Sam is the companion beside Frodo when that betrayal comes.

Within the Fellowship, Sam sets out from Rivendell alongside Gandalf and Aragorn, and Boromir is one of the nine companions with him. The company rests at Lothlorien, where Galadriel warns Frodo that the Ring will test them.

At the end of the trilogy, his personal life takes over: Sam marries Rosie in the Shire. That tie to home sits beside the long road he shares with Frodo.

In my opinion, the strongest Sam scene is the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, when Frodo decides to go on to Mordor alone and Sam insists on coming along. It could be argued that the whole trilogy hangs on that decision, because without it Frodo has no one at his side when Gollum, Faramir's rangers and Shelob arrive in the sequels.

The second moment is the rescue in Return of the King. After Shelob's lair and the orcs who take Frodo, Sam has to go back for him, and the film asks the audience to accept that the least powerful member of the Fellowship is the one who saves the quest. Perhaps this is the plainest example of what the saga is about.

The third is the quiet return to the Shire, when Sam marries Rosie and receives the Red Book from Frodo. It is a small scene after hours of war, and, as such, it gives the epic its human scale. The film ran to 201 minutes and won 11 Oscars including Best Picture, but I think the ending is remembered because Sam is still standing in it.