The Return of the King Movie Quiz

How the film tells the end of the war

The Return of the King does not follow the order of Tolkien’s last volume. The book splits into two halves, the war in the west and then Frodo and Sam in Mordor. The film cuts between them, so the siege of Minas Tirith, the Ride of the Rohirrim and the climb up Mount Doom build toward the same moment. That intercutting is why the destruction of the Ring and the battle at the Black Gate land together on screen.

Several of the best-remembered scenes are the film’s own. The lighting of the beacons, with Pippin climbing the tower and the fires leaping from peak to peak, is a short passing image in the book that Jackson turned into a set piece. Gollum’s trick with the lembas, which drives Frodo to send Sam away, is invented to give the Cirith Ungol story a break and a reunion. Elrond carrying Andúril to Dunharrow moves a book event from Rivendell to the eve of battle.

The film also drops things. The Scouring of the Shire is gone, and Saruman does not appear in the theatrical cut at all; his end is shown only in the Extended Edition. The Paths of the Dead are shorter, and the Dead fight on the Pelennor themselves rather than being released before the ships sail.

The Pelennor Fields and the Witch-king

The Battle of the Pelennor Fields is the largest battle in the trilogy, and the film builds it in layers: the Orc army and its siege towers, the Rohirrim charging at dawn, the Mûmakil, and finally the black ships. The Ride of the Rohirrim, with Théoden riding along the line before the charge, is one of the most quoted sequences of the whole series.

At its centre is Éowyn’s fight with the Witch-king. The film keeps the book’s point: the prophecy says no man will kill him, and he falls to a woman and a hobbit. The film does not stop to explain it, but in the book Merry’s blade was forged in the North long ago against Angmar, and its stroke is what breaks the spell that held the Witch-king together. Our guide to the Nazgûl covers who the Nine were before they became Ringwraiths.

The Elvish you hear in The Return of the King

There is less spoken Elvish in the third film than in the first two, but one moment is pure Tolkien. At his coronation Aragorn sings the oath of Elendil in Quenya, Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien, "Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come." Those words are Tolkien’s own from the book, not lines written for the film. We explain where Aragorn learned the Elvish tongues in How Does Aragorn Know Elvish?.

Arwen’s story in this film is told mostly through images. Her life is said to be bound to the fate of the Ring, and on the road to the Havens she sees a vision of a child, her future son with Aragorn, and turns back. Her Sindarin lines across the trilogy are collected in Arwen’s Elvish quotes.

If you want to read or write these phrases yourself, our free Elvish course starts with the sounds of Quenya and Sindarin, and the Elvish translator shows how a sentence is built from attested words.

Frodo, Sam and Gollum in Mordor

The Mordor half of the film is a three-character story, and Andy Serkis’s Gollum carries much of it. The prologue, in which Serkis appears without the digital make-up as Sméagol before the change, shows how the Ring took him: a fishing trip, a gold ring in the river, and a friend strangled for it. Opening the last film with that scene tells the audience what Frodo is turning into.

From there the film tightens the screws. Gollum plays on Frodo’s weariness and on the Ring’s hold over him, and the lembas trick splits the hobbits just before Shelob’s lair. Sam turns back, finds Frodo wrapped in Shelob’s web, fights her off with Sting and the Phial of Galadriel, and later carries Frodo up the slopes of Mount Doom. The film’s emotional weight rests on Sean Astin’s Sam as much as on Elijah Wood’s Frodo.

At the Crack of Doom the film keeps Tolkien’s hardest idea: Frodo does not destroy the Ring by choice. He claims it, and only Gollum’s attack, and his fall into the fire, ends it. The eagles then carry Frodo and Sam from the burning mountain, a rescue the book also gives to Gwaihir.

Endings, awards and how it was made

The film’s long run of endings was mocked by some critics at the time, but each one closes a thread: the coronation, the return to the Shire, Sam and Rosie, and the departure from the Grey Havens. Frodo leaving with Bilbo, Gandalf and the Elves is the note the trilogy ends on. Sam’s walk home to Rosie and his children, the last image of the film, follows the book closely: the story closes in the Shire, not in Gondor.

All three films were shot together in New Zealand, and The Return of the King was released in December 2003. At the Academy Awards it won all 11 categories it was nominated in, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Howard Shore’s score. It was the first fantasy film to win Best Picture. Annie Lennox’s Into the West, heard over the end credits, took Best Original Song, and the visual effects, costume, make-up and art direction awards went to the crews who had worked on all three films.