Lord of the Rings Movies Ranked: All 7 Films, Best to Worst

I ranked the seven films by one question: how well does each one tell its own story while still belonging to the same Middle-earth? That is the whole method, and it is opinion from start to finish, so you are free to disagree. Critic percentages play no part in the order, and the placings are not a box office table either (for that, see the lord of the rings box office page). The list covers the lord of the rings movies released in theaters: the three Lord of the Rings films, the three Hobbit films and the animated spin-off. The Hunt for Gollum, due in December 2027, is not ranked until it exists.

Four things moved a film up or down: the strength of its story as a standalone piece, the craft on screen, how well the ensemble is used, and whether it earns its running time. If you want the watching sequence rather than my verdict, the lord of the rings movies in order page sets out both release and chronological order.

Fellowship of the Ring, directed by Peter Jackson, is my best Lord of the Rings movie because it makes a vast setup feel like a journey and not a lecture. A prologue explains the master Ring that Sauron made, then the story narrows to Bilbo's 111th birthday party in the Shire and Frodo's flight from the Black Riders with Sam, Merry and Pippin. Few openings in modern fantasy move from myth to a garden party so smoothly. It cost $93 million and earned about $898 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, and its 179 minutes rarely drag. The production was also a feat of organization, with three films shot together from October 1999 in New Zealand, including Hobbiton at Matamata. In my opinion nothing later in the series matches the sense of discovery here.

Return of the King is the highest grossing film of the saga, and it won all 11 of its Oscar nominations, Best Picture among them. It opens with the river where Déagol finds the Ring and Sméagol kills him for it, which tells you more about Gollum in a few minutes than most films manage in a whole running time. The assault on Minas Tirith is a large scale set piece that still reads clearly, and Aragorn's decision about his heritage gives the war a human center. It runs 201 minutes and earned about $1.14 billion worldwide on a $94 million budget. It sits second because it spends the emotional capital that Fellowship and The Two Towers built up, and that is less a complaint than a ranking tiebreak.

The Two Towers is, in my opinion, the hardest film in the saga to structure and, perhaps, the most underrated. The Fellowship has broken apart, so the film juggles Frodo and Sam with Gollum as their guide, Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli chasing the Orcs who took Merry and Pippin, and the two hobbits meeting the Ents in Fangorn Forest. Andy Serkis's Gollum steps forward here as a full character, and Bernard Hill and Miranda Otto join the ensemble as Théoden and Éowyn. It earned about $945 million worldwide. It falls behind the other two because a middle chapter cannot give the satisfaction of an opening or a finale, however well it is made.

If you ask which Hobbit movie is best, my answer is the hobbit an unexpected journey, because it has the clearest shape of the three. Martin Freeman plays a young Bilbo in the Shire, Gandalf picks him as burglar for thirteen dwarves led by Richard Armitage's Thorin Oakenshield, and the quest to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug begins. The film was shot at 48 frames per second in 3D, a choice that drew mixed reactions, and Neil Finn performed Song of the Lonely Mountain at the Wellington premiere. At 169 minutes it is long for a story that has not yet reached the dragon. It cost $200 million and earned about $1.01 billion worldwide. It ranks fourth because it is warm and well cast, but it cannot match the weight of the first trilogy.

Desolation of Smaug has the best ingredients of the Hobbit films and the least coherent whole. Beorn shelters the company, Mirkwood closes in, and Benedict Cumberbatch supplies the dragon at the center of the title. Evangeline Lilly and Lee Pace expand the elf side of the cast, and Ed Sheeran's I See Fire is the film's notable song. Still, at 161 minutes it is a bridge, and the gap between its ambition and its structure is easy to see. It cost $250 million and earned about $959 million worldwide. In my opinion its best scenes stand with the strongest in the Hobbit trilogy, which makes the stretches between them more noticeable.

Battle of the Five Armies is the shortest Hobbit film at 144 minutes, and it starts with Smaug's attack on Lake-town, where Bard fights to stop him. Thorin then falls under a sickness of greed over the Arkenstone, and armies converge on the Lonely Mountain. Armitage's performance gives the film its best material, and Billy Boyd's The Last Goodbye is its notable song. It cost $250 million and earned about $940 million worldwide. It ranks sixth because the third act of a story stretched over three films has more to resolve than to discover, and that is a structural problem, not an acting one.

War of the Rohirrim is the odd one out, an animated spin-off directed by Kenji Kamiyama and set 183 years before the trilogy. Éowyn (voiced by Miranda Otto) narrates a tale of King Helm Hammerhand, voiced by Brian Cox, his daughter Héra and the Dunlending lord Freca, whose son Wulf swears revenge after Helm accidentally kills his father. Paris Paloma's The Rider is its notable song. It ranks last for two reasons: it is the least connected to the ensemble that carries the other six, and it earned about $21 million worldwide against a $30 million budget. It deserves to be judged on its own terms, and that placing says nothing about the effort on screen.

If this order has made you want to see them in sequence, the lord of the rings timeline shows where each story sits, and individual verdicts will appear on the lord of the rings reviews page. My advice: start with Fellowship, and decide for yourself whether the Hobbit films belong after the trilogy or before it.