Lord of The Rings Film Trilogy - Reception - Public and Critical Response

Public and Critical Response

Unadjusted for inflation, The Lord of the Rings film trilogy is the highest grossing film trilogy worldwide of all time, higher even than other film franchises such as the original Star Wars trilogy and The Godfather trilogy. The film series grossed a total of $2.91 billion. The film series also tied a record with Ben-Hur and Titanic for the total number of Academy Awards won for a single film with The Return of the King receiving eleven Oscars.

The majority of critics have also praised the series, with Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times writing that "the trilogy will not soon, if ever, find its equal". In particular, performances from Ian McKellen, Sean Astin, Sean Bean, Andy Serkis, and Bernard Hill stood out for many in audience polls, and special effects for the battles and Gollum were praised. Some were critical of the films' pacing and length: "It's a collection of spectacular set pieces without any sense of momentum driving them into one another" according to the Philadelphia Weekly.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the series received a positive 94% average rating from critics – 92%, 96%, and 94% respectively, making it one of the highest-rated film series of all-time, along with the Toy Story trilogy (in which the first two films earned a perfect 100%, and the third earned 99%), The Apu Trilogy (97%, 93%, and 100%), the Dollars trilogy (98%, 93%, 97%), The Dark Knight trilogy (85%, 94%, 87%), and the original Star Wars trilogy (94%, 97%, and 79%). Metacritic, based on its ratings for each film (92%, 88%, 94%), lists the series as one of two most critically acclaimed trilogies of all time. Every film is placed in the top 100 of the 'Metacritic Best-Reviewed Movies' list, a position achieved (as of July 2010) by only one other trilogy, the Toy Story trilogy.

The series appears in many "Top 10" film lists, such as the Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association's Top 10 Films, IMDb top 250, Time magazine's All-Time 100 Movies, and James Berardinelli's Top 100. In 2007, USA Today named the series as the most important films of the past 25 years. Entertainment Weekly put it on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Bringing a cherished book to the big screen? No sweat. Peter Jackson's trilogy—or, as we like to call it, our preciousssss—exerted its irresistible pull, on advanced Elvish speakers and neophytes alike." Paste Magazine named it one of the 50 Best Movies of the Decade (2000–2009), ranking it at No. 4. In another Time magazine list, the series ranks second in "Best Movies of the Decade".