The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)

All Critics (245) | Top Critics (46) | Fresh (231) | Rotten (14) | DVD (55)

Standing out amid an excellent cast is Elijah Wood, stymied by tweeness in the earlier films but here convincingly developing the character of Frodo as the embodiment of valor and self-sacrifice.

February 6, 2007 Full Review

Andrea Gronvall

Chicago Reader

Top Critic

Some story strands are crudely abbreviated; others fail to develop elements that were already well-established.

February 9, 2006 Full Review | Comments (42)

Geoff Andrew

Time Out

Top Critic

Pops your eyes, excites your senses and brings you in as close as a whisper for scenes of startling emotion.

January 15, 2004

Peter Travers

Rolling Stone

Top Critic

As I watched this film, an eager victim of its boundless will to astound, I found my loyal memories of the book beginning to fade.

January 6, 2004

Anthony Lane

New Yorker

Top Critic

Not only has Jackson boldly and faithfully brought J.R.R. Tolkien's world to life, he's created the most epic and sweeping fantasy adventure of all time.

December 18, 2003 Full Review

Bill Muller

Arizona Republic

Top Critic

Completes the picture, magnificently so, and all honour and praise are due the visionaries behind the project.

December 17, 2003 Full Review

Peter Howell

Toronto Star

Top Critic

Rousing, satisfying and awe-inspiring, The Return Of The King provides a worthy conclusion to what is both an incredible cinematic achievement and the finest fantasy filmmaking ever to grace our screens.

December 23, 2012 Full Review

Stephen Carty

Flix Capacitor

The spectacle is ramped up here more than in the preceding two movies combined.

December 16, 2012 Full Review

Tim Brayton

Antagony & Ecstasy

When I met the barefooted scruff [Peter Jackson] two years ago, he regretted he'd never been to Birmingham to see Tolkien's inspirations at first hand.

December 9, 2011 Full Review

Graham Young

Birmingham Mail

An insurmountable amount of extras comes second only to New Line Home Video's stunning visual and audio transfer of Peter Jackson's exhilarating and exhausting epic.

July 8, 2011 Full Review | Comment (1)

Chris Cabin

Slant Magazine

If this wasn't quite the best movie of 2003, it was definitely the most fun to be had at the movies all year

August 17, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

Jay Antani

Cinema Writer

...every bit as grand, as imposing, as jaw-droppingly awe-inspiring as anything in the first two episodes. (Extended Edition)

March 23, 2010 Full Review | Comment (1)

John J. Puccio

Movie Metropolis

All hail to the King.

May 12, 2009 Full Review | Comments (4)

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

This is a masterpiece of filmmaking and Jackson truly deserves an Oscar.

April 29, 2009 Full Review | Comment (1)

Felix Vasquez Jr.

Cinema Crazed

A tale of heroes, bonded together by friendship, it's the very special friendship between hobbits Elijah Wood's Frodo and Sean Astin's Sam that touches us most of all.

October 18, 2008 Full Review

Urban Cinefile Critics

Urban Cinefile

A lot of it is just hacking and slashing on a mammoth scale, which is still just hacking and slashing.

August 13, 2007 Full Review | Comments (7)

Rob Gonsalves

eFilmCritic.com

This is a filmmaker in the grandest tradition of the word.

July 14, 2007 Full Review

Joe Lozito

Big Picture Big Sound

An absolutely absorbing finale which establishes the trilogy as perhaps the best mythic fable ever brought to the big screen.

April 22, 2007 Full Review | Comment (1)

Kam Williams

Princeton Town Topics

No flabber has been left ungasted by Mr Jackson's mighty battle sequences, nor no gob unsmacked.

January 27, 2007 Full Review | Comments (2)

Peter Bradshaw

Guardian [UK]

A masterful moment in cinema.

December 6, 2005 Full Review | Comments (4)

Clint Morris

Film Threat

Imbues its central conflicts with mythic timelessness.

May 4, 2005 Full Review

Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

A truly cinematic experience that you'll find practically impossible to forget and a more than fitting end to one of the greatest film franchises ever made.

April 2, 2005 Full Review | Comment (1)

Garth Franklin

Dark Horizons

Let's just get this out of the way: Return of the King was awesome.

January 15, 2005 Full Review

Vic Holtreman

ScreenRant

Jackson finishes the epic with a flourish that leaves all other big screen fantasies thoroughly humbled.

January 15, 2005

Jeffrey Overstreet

Looking Closer

• 1. Frodo Baggins: Ant thus it was. A Fourth Age of Middle-earth began. And the Fellowship of the Ring though eternally bound by friendship and love was ended. Thirtheen months to the day since Gandalf sent us on our long journey, we found ourselves looking upon a familiar sight. We were home.
  – Submitted by Jean R (2 months ago)
• 1. Aragorn: My friends, you bow to no one.
  – Submitted by Jean R (2 months ago)
• 1. Frodo Baggins: How do you go on when in your heart, you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep that have taken hold.
  – Submitted by Adi P (3 months ago)
• 1. Frodo Baggins: How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep that have taken hold.
  – Submitted by Adi P (3 months ago)
• 1. Gimli: Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf.
  2. Legolas: What about side by side with a friend?
  3. Gimli: I could do that.
  – Submitted by Hazim I (4 months ago)
• 1. Samwise Gamgee: Do you remember the taste of strawberries?
  2. Frodo Baggins: No Sam...I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, or the touch of grass.
  – Submitted by Liam H (5 months ago)