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The announcement brings and end to a near three-year wait for the trilogy's return to Netflix, and marks the first time that all three movies will be simultaneously available on the platform. However, the movies will only be available to stream on Netflix in the US. UK viewers will have to sign up to Now TV to watch them on British shores.
On the surface, it would have made more sense for Amazon to strike a licensing deal with Embracer Group, the current owner of the rights to Lord of the Rings, to bring the trilogy to its streaming service. However, given that The Rings of Power's creators are just as confused as we all are about the franchise's new owners, who knows why that won't be the case.
Given the movies' formerly brief stints on Netflix, it'll be interesting to see how long all three films will stick around for. Obtaining the rights for any third-party content is an expensive endeavor for any streaming company, so it's unclear how long Jackson's Lord of the Rings flicks will remain on Netflix.
It's possible that the streaming giant agreed a temporary deal with WBD to add the films to its back catalog, with the view to attracting new subscribers. Netflix has set a deadline for its crackdown on password sharing, so maybe this is its way of enticing new customers to purchase their own accounts. However, considering Netflix added 7.66 million new subscribers to its userbase in Q4 2022, it's not struggling to convince people to sign up.
Regardless, based on the brevity of their previous Netflix outings, we'd advise you to stream The Lord of the Rings film trilogy once February 1 rolls around. Who knows how long they'll be available for, so you're best watching them as soon as possible.
For more Lord of the Rings and other streaming content, read up on what we know about The Rings of Power season 2. Additionally, find out whether Jackson's trilogy is part of our best HBO Max movies list, or see what the best Netflix movies and best Prime Video movies are right now.
As TechRadar's senior entertainment reporter, Tom covers all of the latest movies, TV shows, and streaming service news that you need to know about. You'll regularly find him writing about the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus, and many other topics of interest.
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Powerful message of friendship among the Hobbits and the other allies (including different species). The seemingly meek Hobbits defy odds and earn wide respect through battle and heroism. Theme of sacrifices made in an immense struggle, including fighting against presumably impossible odds and overwhelming numbers and trying to be brave against inevitable death. In the end, family and loved ones are worth fighting for. Additional themes include courage, perseverance, and teamwork.
Heroes like Aragon, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, and Theoden combat evil and encourage their fellow warriors, even when everything looks hopeless. Eowyn is a strong female warrior, even though men (like her kingly uncle) try to discourage her from fighting. But not all royalty behaves royally; a lord mistreats his younger son and nearly causes the character's death. Meanwhile, hero Frodo is nearly taken over by the evil of the ring, causing him to act selfish and irrational. Thankfully, his best friend Sam continues to support him, even physically carry him, through the end.
Characters are predominantly White and male. All leaders are White men, although one entrusts his niece with leading their people in the case of his death. The niece, a White human woman, is good with a sword, defies orders to join in battle, and has a major victory. She's also a love interest for a male character, as is an Elf woman whose terminal illness is used to motivate her male romantic partner. Bloodthirsty Uruk-hai warriors have dark skin and tribal-type markings. Men from foreign lands on the side of evil have darker skin and wear turbans, face paint, and face coverings and ride elephants. Short-statured characters, such as Hobbits and Dwarves, aren't cast with little people, though it should be noted that these fantasy races are based on old mythology and aren't intended to represent humans. That said, Tolkien's portrayals, such as the bearded, ax-wielding Dwarves, have become clichs over time.
Violence is savage and intense. Thousands of creatures and humans are speared, slashed, hit fatally with arrows, crushed, decapitated, impaled on large spikes, and, in the opening scene, painfully strangled to death. There's a catapult-shower of severed human heads, venom stings from a monster spider, and characters burning to death. A key character's finger is bitten off.
Parents need to know that The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is the third and final movie of Peter Jackson's seminal trilogy based on the fantasy book series by J.R.R. Tolkien, sometimes called the "father of high fantasy." There are major battles, with deaths and casualties by arrows, spears, swords, monster-stomping, fatal plunges, and explosions. Horses as well as elephant-like beasts are killed violently. There's nightmarish imagery of ghoulish creatures, including a zombie-like ghost army and a hideous giant spider. Heroic characters smoke, drink, and get drunk. Diversity is lacking, and there are xenophobic portrayals of "foreigners" who wear turbans and face coverings while serving evil. But a strong female human warrior has a prominent role in battle. Themes include teamwork, perseverance, and courage. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
As with the first two chapters, Jackson's rendition of this Tolkien classic is astonishing. Every detail of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is just right, and from the struggles of three very small creatures to stay alive as they scale sheer rock to huge battles with hundreds of thousands of warriors, every moment is vivid, exciting, and moving. That means not just Middle Earth citadels, a giant spider, and thousands of phantom combatants, but also smaller moments of equal power. Sam and Gollum each try to make Frodo mistrust the other. There are villains, grotesque and powerful, weak and greedy. And there are heroes: loyal, brave, devoted, and honorable.
The tone of The Return of the King is epic and majestic, the battles brilliantly staged. But it's still all about the story. Characters learn and deepen. Even little Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) go from cute comic relief to genuine heroes. There's so much going on that some characters seem like not much more than cameos, especially Arwen (Liv Tyler) and Galadriel (Cate Blanchette). And the post-ending endings, after more than three hours, may seem a bit too much. But this is still an epic to satisfy both the most devoted Tolkien fans and viewers who are new to Middle Earth. In its own way, it's as thrilling an adventure in storytelling on film as the quest it portrays.
You can also talk about the modern-day parallels to these stories, since Tolkien wrote the books as parables. How are Tolkien's parables different from those of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien's longtime friend and colleague?
How do you think the movie adaptations compare with Tolkien's books? How do they compare with other titles in the franchise, such as The Hobbit films or the The Rings of Power TV show?
At last the full arc is visible, and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy comes into final focus. I admire it more as a whole than in its parts. The second film was inconclusive, and lost its way in the midst of spectacle. But "Return of the King" dispatches its characters to their destinies with a grand and eloquent confidence. This is the best of the three, redeems the earlier meandering, and certifies the "Ring" trilogy as a work of bold ambition at a time of cinematic timidity.
That it falls a little shy of greatness is perhaps inevitable. The story is just a little too silly to carry the emotional weight of a masterpiece. It is a melancholy fact that while the visionaries of a generation ago, like Coppola with "Apocalypse Now," tried frankly to make films of great consequence, an equally ambitious director like Peter Jackson is aiming more for popular success. The epic fantasy has displaced real contemporary concerns, and audiences are much more interested in Middle Earth than in the world they inhabit.
Still, Jackson's achievement cannot be denied. "Return of the King" is such a crowning achievement, such a visionary use of all the tools of special effects, such a pure spectacle, that it can be enjoyed even by those who have not seen the first two films. Yes, they will be adrift during the early passages of the film's 200 minutes, but to be adrift occasionally during this nine-hour saga comes with the territory; Tolkien's story is so sweeping and Jackson includes so much of it that only devoted students of the Ring can be sure they understand every character, relationship and plot point.
The third film gathers all of the plot strands and guides them toward the great battle at Minas Tirith; it is "before these walls, that the doom of our time will be decided." The city is a spectacular achievement by the special- effects artisans, who show it as part fortress, part Emerald City, topping a mountain, with a buttress reaching out over the plain below where the battle will be joined. In a scene where Gandalf rides his horse across the drawbridge and up the ramped streets of the city, it's remarkable how seamlessly Jackson is able to integrate computer-generated shots with actual full-scale shots, so they all seem of a piece.
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