The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Well it was a no doubter in 2003. Everyone knew that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King would win and win it did. It won all 11 awards it was nominated tying the record of 11 wins (All About Eve and Titanic) and becoming the largest sweep in Oscar history (Gigi and The Last Emperor both swept with 9 wins). It was seen as pretty much an award for the entire trilogy instead of a specific film. In total all three films had 30 nominations and 17 wins. It was also one of the few movies to win Best Picture without being nominated for any acting awards (the only acting nomination any of the films got was Ian McKellan as Gandalf for The Fellowship of the Rings). The Return of the King was the first one to win major awards including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director (all three for Peter Jackson).


To sum up the three movies (approximately 9 hours in their theatrical version) LOTR is about a hobbit Frodo who gains possession of a powerful ring what gives the owner great power. He is tasked with destroying the ring before it can get in the hands of Sauron the Dark Lord. A fellowship is formed to help protect Frodo that includes Gandolf a wizard, Legolas the elf, Gimli the Dwarf, Aragorn a man and three of his hobbit friends Pippin, Merry, and Samwise. They must travel to Mount Doom to destroy the ring and along the way they must learn to work together and fight powerful orcs and other forces of the dark. When the fellowship breaks up Frodo and Sam head off on their own and after Pippin and Merry are kidnapped Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn go and search for them. Each group faces their own tests. Frodo and Sam must find a way through the mountains and after getting lost they meet Gollum a previous owner of the ring who says he will help them find their way but very much covets his “precious”. As the powerful army of the Dark Lord descends on the cities of men the cities must put away their differences and join forces to overcome the onslaught. Frodo and Sam are led by Gollum through the mazes of the mountains the whole time Gollum is trying to figure out a way to get the ring back. After overcoming many obstacles Sam and Frodo manage to make it to Mount Doom just in time for the army of men to overtake the orc army.

The movies have many amazing battle scenes and one of my favorite are the Ents attack on Isengard in the Two Towers. Of course they saved the best for last and the battle sequences towards the end of Return of the King are amazing. The story taken as a whole is one of adventure, triumph of will, and redemption. Peter Jackson’s ability to keep all the different story lines fitting perfectly is a great achievement. There are some many plot lines in the movie but you never feel too overwhelmed. The biggest problem I had with the first two movies was the lack of ending, and the biggest problem I have with the last movie is there are too many endings. When I first saw this in the theatre I was halfway out of my seat before I realized the movie wasn’t really over yet. I really think he could have cut out one of the endings. But you have to love the scope and ambition of the movies and the great visuals. With the extended editions available on DVD and Blu-Ray now there is even more to the story and it feels more complete now.

While LOTR:TROTK was the big winner there were other good movies that year. One of the other big winners that year was a small crime drama Mystic River directed by Clint Eastwood. It won Best Actor for Sean Penn and Best Supporting Actor for Tim Robbins. The dark tale about three childhood friends in Boston who have a dark secret and many years later must face old demons when one of their daughters is killed. This was a superbly acted movie and proved that Clint Eastwood knows how to direct. Any other year this would have had a chance to win Best Picture. One of my other favorite movies of the year only had two acting nominations was The House of Sand and Fog with Ben Kingsley and Shohreh Aghdashloo getting nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress and missing from list of Best Actresses was the amazing performance by Jennifer Connelly. It definitely deserved more recognition. One of the pleasantly surprising nominations was Johnny Depp’s first Best Actor nomination as Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. One of the most talked about movies of the year was Lost in Translation written and directed by Sophia Coppola which you either loved or hated and I fall in to the latter category. The movie did nothing for me and I found it kind of boring. Coppola did become only the third women to be nominated for Best Director and did win for Best Original Screenplay. The small independent film thirteen only had one nomination for Best Supporting Actress for Holly Hunter but was a great movie and should have had more nominations then that.

Oscar Trivia:
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the longest title ever to win Best Picture (second place goes to Around the World in 80 Days)
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is only the second trilogy to have all three films nominated for Best Picture (The Godfather Trilogy is the only other one).