Where to Watch The Lord of the Rings
- SakyoshaNovember 19, 2025What's Good: You can see where Peter Jackson got so much inspiration for his vision from this movie. The individual performances by most of the main cast are inspired, with little idiosyncrasies that really come to life. What's Bad: Rotoscoping can be used to bring life-like performances from live action to animated (through the power of Tracing); where real artists apply further details beyond straight ripping from live action footage. Bakshi does this for the main characters, most of the time. However, all of the background and antagonist characters are essentially live action footage with a faded filter over the top, with some slap-dash highlights added. To claim this is the height of animation, or even good animation, is farcical. The bad-guy designs are so low-effort it's laughable, and some of the heroes are drawn poorly as well (Legolas appears to have some sort of syndrome or another, and Bilbo ends up looking like a mix of Buddy Hackett and Forrest Whitaker.) To provide the fairest review possible - one has to exclude any other adaptations - for it does not have the power of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, nor does it have the heart and charm of the Rankin/Bass adaptations. Standing alone, it was all we got for a Fellowship/Two Towers adaptation for 20 years - but it never did it well. It's a 'watch it once just to experience it, but then lock it away to be remembered in rose-colored memory' ever after.
- TheW1ckedOneJuly 14, 2026Not as good as The Hobbit (1977). I liked the colors, the movie felt magical and surreal, love how much there's in it but I felt it wasn't as good as The Hobbit.
- TomVaderJanuary 19, 2026I originally saw this movie as a young teen, and it was my first introduction to this story and the first time I had seen this style of animation (rotoscope). It blew me away at the time, since it's incredibly realistic for a cartoon. They do mix in some live-action shots, mostly of shadows and things that are too dark or oversaturated to actually tell whether they are live-action shots, or drawn cartoons. Some of that can come off as trippy. However, I still think, as a work of art, it's pretty amazing. The only reason I'm not giving it 5 stars, is because it's not done. The story ends at the battle of Helm's Deep. Although there is a follow-up cartoon, it's not made by the same people, nor in the same style. That all being said, if you're a fan of LOTR, you should like this version. For me, this one still feels like the grandaddy of the whole thing, and I think it's great.
- Stephen GuerreroJuly 7, 2026This was my second visualizing of the stroy through someone else's eyes and I've shared it with my 3 children and now I'm sharing with my grandchildren...
- Jerry L. Arp IIJune 17, 2026It's sure not Peter Jackson's take on it, but it has stuck with me for almost 50 years. A movie you dislike doesn't do that. I love this interpretation of this story. I'll continue to watch it over and over again.
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The Lord of the Rings was released on November 15, 1978.
The Lord of the Rings was directed by Ralph Bakshi.
The Lord of the Rings has a runtime of 2h 12m.
The Lord of the Rings was produced by Nancy Eichler, Saul Zaentz.
A young Hobbit known as Frodo is thrown into an amazing adventure when he's given the task of destroying the One Ring, which was created by the dark lord Sauron. He will travel in a small fellowship of nine warriors and friends. But it won't be an easy journey for the Fellowship of the Ring, on the ultimate quest to rid Middle-earth of evil.
The key characters in The Lord of the Rings are Frodo (voice) (Christopher Guard), Gandalf (voice) (William Squire), Sam (voice) (Michael Scholes).
The Lord of the Rings is rated PG.
The Lord of the Rings is an Animation, Adventure, Fantasy film.
The Lord of the Rings has an audience rating of 6.4 out of 10.
The Lord of the Rings had a budget of $4M.
The Lord of the Rings has made $30.5M at the box office.