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

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

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

Labeling this as a "movie" is almost an injustice. This is an experience of epic scope and grandeur, amazing emotional power, and relentless momentum.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

All in all, it's a fitting conclusion to the series, and yet there are disappointments built in. For one, Jackson has opted not to film Tolkien's downbeat "Scouring Of The Shire" epilogue.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