The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Critic Reviews

It's been a long time since a commercially oriented film with the scale of "King" ended with such an enduring and heartbreaking coda.Read the full review

As good as each individual movie is, the third film vaults the work into the stratosphere of classic movies. Key characters are enhanced, new civilizations visited and battles fought more intensely, while feelings and motivations are plumbed more deeply and movingly.Read the full review

An epic success and a history-making production that finishes with a masterfully entertaining final installment.Read the full review

As completely real on the psychological level as its up-to-the-moment visual effects have on the physical.Read the full review

Represents that filmmaking rarity -- a third part of a trilogy that is decisively the best of the lot. With epic conflict, staggering battles, striking landscapes and effects, and resolved character arcs all leading to a dramatic conclusion to more than nine hours of masterful storytelling.Read the full review

This movie is not only a thrilling experience, it closes the book on a truly satisfying trilogy.Read the full review

It might be the cinema's most astonishing holy war film. The Lord of the Rings took seven years and an army of gifted artists to execute, and the striving of its makers is in every splendid frame. It's more than a movie--it's a gift.Read the full review

The invisible wizard Peter Jackson makes use of every scene to show us the meaning of magnificence. Never has a filmmaker aimed higher, or achieved more.Read the full review

The conclusion of Peter Jackson's masterwork is passionate and literate, detailed and expansive, and it's conceived with a risk-taking flair for old-fashioned movie magic at its most precious.Read the full review