Lord of the Rings is still the best fantasy film series of all time thanks to its vast scope, unsurpassed sense of adventure, beloved characters, and enduring relationships between them. Let’s find out more about, How to Watch The Lord of the Rings in Chronological Order?
Thanks to Amazon’s fantastic new Middle-earth TV series, The Rings of Power, LotR is once again in the public consciousness, 21 years after The Fellowship of the Ring.
We’ve written this post to make sure beginners may successfully navigate both The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies. It’s quite simple to watch the Lord of the Rings movies in order. The concise storyline summaries below will only provide general plot points and character introductions, keeping series novices in mind.
If you’d rather view the movies in the order they were released, there is a second list at the bottom of the article that does so (as I do). Let’s find out more about, How to Watch The Lord of the Rings in Chronological Order?
How Many Lord Of The Rings Films Are There?
In total, three The Lord of the Rings films and three The Hobbit films are set in J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth. The Hobbit, an animated movie released in 1997, is another option apart from the more recent movies. There are no more movies in the works, but Amazon is now airing the second season of its Rings of Power television series.
What Place in the Lord of the Rings Timeline Do the Rings of Power Have?
The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which are set in the third age, are thousands of years before the events in Amazon’s Rings of Power trilogy, which takes place during the Second Age of Middle-earth. According to showrunners J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, this time period in Middle-earth will feature “the forging of the rings, the emergence of the Dark Lord Sauron, the epic tale of Nmenor, and the Last Alliance of Elves and Men.”
Source: Variety
The Order of the Lord of the Rings Films
1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
Watch it on HBO Max or rent it on Amazon.
The only probable source of misunderstanding in the Lord of the Rings-Hobbit timeline is the fact that, despite being published a decade after The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit trilogy is set 60 years before it.
The plot begins chronologically with the 2012 film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, in which Martin Freeman plays a younger Bilbo Baggins (played by Ian Holm in the LotR trilogy).
When the dragon Smaug attacked the Dwarven kingdom beneath Erebor, also known as The Lonely Mountain, Gandalf—one of several characters whose stories appear in both trilogies—enlists Bilbo to aid Thorin (Richard Armitage) and Company retakes it. The One Ring is obtained by Bilbo along the way, where he also first meets Gollum.
Review of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey may be found here.
2. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
HBO Max on August 25th, or rent it from Amazon
Thorin and company continue on their journey to The Lonely Mountain while avoiding orcs and enormous spiders. Alongside newcomer Tauriel (played by Evangeline Lilly of Ant-Man), another stalwart from the Lord of the Rings, Orlando Bloom’s Legolas, joins the fray.
Bilbo descends into the mountain and meets Smaug as the group arrives at Esgaroth, a lake-town south of Erebor (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch). The finale of The Hobbit trilogy is set up when Smaug eventually leaves his cave and travels to Esgaroth.
3. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies 3. (2014)
After the conflict with Smaug is finished, the men’s, dwarves’, elves’, and two orc tribes’ armies engage in the movie’s eponymous battle. As The Battle of the Five Armies is ripe with resolution (and thus spoilers), we’re being intentionally vague here, but brace yourself for an action-packed movie that ultimately picks up where The Lord of the Rings trilogy leaves off: back at the Shire, 60 years later, as Gandalf visits Bilbo on his 111th birthday.
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Where to watch: HBO Max, or on Amazon as a rental
The Fellowship of the Ring, released in 2001, is the first Middle-earth movie in terms of release date (and fourth in terms of chronological order). From Bilbo’s perspective, we now see his much younger cousin Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood). We return to Bilbo’s 111th birthday celebration in the Shire after some background information on the current situation in Middle-earth is provided.
Frodo receives a warning from Gandalf that he must leave the Shire because Sauron (the Lord of the Rings) and his wicked minions will be coming for the ring. The Nazgûl are a group of nine horse-mounted wraiths. Bilbo leaves the One Ring with Frodo as he embarks on one more journey.
Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin), Frodo’s best friend, and Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippen accompany him as they leave the Shire (Billy Boyd).
After some dangerous journeys and the introduction of several characters, including Aragorn (Mortensen), Legolas (Bloom), and Saruman (Christopher Lee), a strategy is developed to destroy the Ring in the Mount Doom fires of Mordor, where the Rings of Power were formed.
A motley crew known as the Fellowship of the Ring will carry out the scheme, including the wizard Gandalf, the hobbits Frodo, Samwise, Merry, and Pippen, the elf Legolas, the dwarf Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), and humans Aragorn and Boromir (Sean Bean).
They embark on a perilous journey to reach Lothlórien, an elf kingdom ruled by Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel, who also makes appearances in The Hobbit trilogy and is one of the primary characters of the new Amazon series (this younger version of Galadriel is played by Morfydd Clark). After receiving advice from Galadriel, Frodo makes the decision to travel to Mordor alone, with only Sam, his closest confidant.
5. The Two Towers from The Lord of the Rings, no. 5 (2002)
Where to watch: HBO Max, or on Amazon as a rental
Gollum, a hobbit who was long ago corrupted by the influence of the One Ring, joins Frodo and Sam as a third unwelcome traveling companion. Gollum is voiced by Andy Serkis. The group makes it to Mordor’s outskirts, but they are stopped by an unexpected intervention. The first major battle of the trilogy takes place in the Helm’s Deep gorge while the other members of the Fellowship leave on a rescue expedition, Gandalf becomes a new form and other events.
6. Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Where to watch: HBO Max, or on Amazon as a rental
The Return of the King’s plot, like that of The Battle of the Five Armies, is virtually all spoilers, therefore we’ll once more simply discuss the major narrative points. Sam and Frodo are put against each other by Gollum, who uses the power of the Ring to bring the former into the den of a terrible foe. While doing so, the other members of the Fellowship participate in the enormous, decisive Battle of the Pelennor Fields against Sauron’s evil armies.
The initial plan is eventually carried out by Frodo and Sam, who infiltrate Mordor undercover and with assistance from the other members of the Fellowship. After the adventure is over, Middle-earth enters its Fourth Age, and we are given a bittersweet conclusion.
How to Watch The Lord of the Rings in Chronological Order
- Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
- Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
- King’s Return from The Lord of the Rings (2003)
- The Hobbit: A Surprising Journey (2012)
- Smaug’s Desolation from The Hobbit (2013)
- the Five Armies Battle in The Hobbit (2014)
- Rings of Power, a TV show (2022)
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