The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

The last film of the trilogy. There are two lines. Frodo and Sam walk toward Mordor with the ring; everyone else goes to Gondor, where the battle will be. The opening goes back. It shows the day Sméagol first found the ring, and that short section explains the whole of Gollum. From there the film runs at two speeds. On one side the siege of Minas Tirith, the beacons, the arrival of the riders of Rohan and the battle on the Pelennor Fields. On the other, two hobbits, a spider, a tower and a weight that keeps getting heavier. What the narrative is interested in is not victory but carrying: Frodo becomes unable to walk and Sam picks him up, and the entire idea of the film sits in that one scene. Éowyn's line is the best written part of the battle and the confrontation turns on a play on words. The Denethor section is the most argued-over part; the character is drawn more simply than in the book. The software developed for the battle crowds gave each soldier its own decisions; tens of thousands of figures were not placed by hand, and the technique later became standard in the industry. Minas Tirith was both built as a large-scale model and extended digitally; the tiers on the hillside are photographs of a real object. The film closes and opens again several times at the end, which has been its most criticised feature since release. It was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won all eleven, still the highest number of nominations any film has converted completely. Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Andy Serkis, Miranda Otto and Bernard Hill are in the cast. Peter Jackson directed. Who it is for: anyone who has watched the other two; this is where they are paid. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a standalone film; the narrative does not stand alone and the running time is very long.