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Year of the Ring

Year of the Ring

2021 marks the 20th anniversary of The Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. In honor of these enduring classics, we’re exploring every aspect of Peter Jackson’s trilogy, from J.R.R. Tolkien’s source material to the films’ best scenes and moments, along with the continued influence of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King on modern pop culture.

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Lord of the Rings’ Gimli double finally tells his tale

By James Grebey

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What if The Lord of the Rings movies never happened?

By Jeremy Smith

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Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: Return of the King needed one more ending

By Susana Polo

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Queer readings of The Lord of the Rings are not accidents

By Molly Ostertag

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What Peter Jackson’s original two-movie Lord of the Rings almost looked like

By Drew McWeeny

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How The Lord of the Rings’ Hobbiton changed life in Matamata, New Zealand

By Jim Fishwick

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Evangelicals saw their foes in Harry Potter and themselves in Lord of the Rings

By Rev. Tom Emanuel

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Lord of the Rings is helping keep a 50-year-old shade of lipstick alive

By Maggie Lovitt

Every photo from the 2001 Lord of the Rings media blitz is a priceless work of art

By Matt Patches

Gollum is a singular performance without a sole author

By Isaac Butler

Debating if The Lord of the Rings films are Thanksgiving movies or Christmas movies

By Jeremy Gordon, Daniel Dockery, and 1 more

PS2’s Two Towers was the coolest way to miss the whole point of the Lord of the Rings

By Cameron Kunzelman

‘You shall not pass’ is classic Gandalf, but his greatest line is key to Lord of the Rings

By Susana Polo

Peter Jackson one-upped Tolkien by making Lord of the Rings into a Horse Girl story

By Susana Polo

The Lord of the Rings’ 20-year-old DVD set is absolutely thriving on TikTok

By Liz Anderson

Let’s call Fellowship of the Ring what it is: a horror movie

By Austen Goslin

The Lord of the Rings hobbits are almost too hot to make sense

By Max Genecov

Lord of the Rings made people think Sauron is an eye — but he’s so much more

By Leon Miller

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The jeweler who forged the One Ring never got to see it

The late artist Jens Hansen, remembered by his children and LOTR crew

By Sara Murphy

Which two towers in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers are THE two towers? The answer is maddening.

By Susana Polo

Confessions of a former Legolas fangirl

By Kendra James

The Lord of the Rings movies invented orc restaurants, in a classic fantasy pitfall

By Susana Polo

The first note played in the Lord of the Rings score has an ancient history

By Rebecca Long

The truth about elven immortality

By Susana Polo

In praise of Aragorn, the most well-rounded sex symbol on Middle (or any) earth

By Joshua Rivera

A report from Lord of the Rings’ 2001 Comic-Con panel, with new perspective

By Cliff Broadway

One cannot simply separate the Lord of the Rings movies from meme immortality

By Isabelle Lichtenstein

Legolas’ dumb, perfect faces are the key to his whole character

By Susana Polo

Lord of the Rings revived soft masculinity with Boromir’s tender death

By Zev Chevat

Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings heralded the end of ‘nerd stuff’

By Susana Polo

A guide to being the most annoying person to watch Lord of the Rings with

By Susana Polo, Toussaint Egan, and 1 more

Lord of the Rings knows full well what it’s doing

By Kyle Turner

The eagles in Lord of the Rings are a plot hole, but also an us problem

By Susana Polo

An investigation of how Legolas got on that horse that one time

By Max Covill

Return of the King won big, but Fellowship changed the Oscars forever

By Chris Feil

13 Frodos changed action figures forever

By Tim Hanley

The moral of Denethor’s Lord of the Rings story is stop doomscrolling

By Luke Ottenhof

Lord of the Rings’ best joke is about wigs, dolphins, and soccer

By Joshua Rivera

I wore Arwen’s bridge dress to prom thanks to a united Lord of the Rings fandom

By Andrea Ayres

Everybody loves the least definitive versions of the Lord of the Rings movies

By Susana Polo

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