The 32 greatest Lord of the Rings movie moments

Peter Jackson's three Lord of the Rings movies tare some of the greatest achievements in all of cinema. A blockbuster adaptation of an iconic fantasy epic, The Lord of the Rings movies are action-packed, tear-jerking, and just about everything you could possibly want from a trip to the movies. (The special effects also hold up extremely well, which is not something you can say about every big VFX-heavy film from the early '00s.)

These three great films are full of incredible moments, naturally. The following 32 moments,which include memorable quotes, exciting action setpieces, and everything in between, are part of what makes The Lord of the Rings films so beloved. Heck, you could double the length, making a list of the 64 greatest moments from The Lord of the Rings, and still be leaving incredible parts out.

Please note that this list only includes scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King, rather than any of the three Hobbit movies. There also aren't any scenes from the extended editions, though there are plenty of great moments in those lengthy edits. Let's give Saruman's death an honorable mention.

32. "Po-Tay-Toes"

"Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew." The Lord of the Rings movies inspired a lot of memes, perhaps the best of which comes in The Two Towers when Sam (Sean Astin), exasperated, tries to explain to Gollum (Andy Serkis) how he'd ideally be preparing the rabbit they managed to scrounge up for dinner. It's a nice, brief moment of comic relief that also showcases Sam's character. Even as he's trekking into Mordor with an enemy chained to his side, he's ultimately a good-natured Hobbit with a taste for good food who misses home. This contrast helps make him the hero he is.

31. Legolas' Shield Slide

Legolas' coolest moment in the trilogy comes after the Uruk-hai breach the walls of Helm's Deep. Rapid-firing arrows as he snipes Uruk after Uruk, Legolas (Orlando Bloom) then hops onto a shield and surfs it down some stairs, continuing to fire arrows as he slides. It's just superhuman enough in a way that works with Legolas' elven nature. If there's a downside to the shield slide, it's that it sets a precedent that later movies would try to top. The shield slide is downright quaint compared to Legolas single-handedly taking out a Mûmakil in Return of the King; a moment that's so absurd that it slightly diminishes the stakes of the climactic battle. The Hobbit movies do even more egregious things in an effort to make Legolas even cooler. It's all too much. The shield slide is perfect.

30. Viggo Mortensen Breaks His Toe

If you're watching The Lord of the Rings with a huge fan of the films, you can bet they're just waiting until they get to this moment so they can turn to you and mention this fun bit of movie trivia. In The Two Towers, when Aragorn believes that Merry (Dominic Monaghan) and Pippin (Billy Boyd) have been killed, he kicks a Uruk-hai helmet that's lying on the ground and screams in frustrated grief and agony. However, the scream is very much real because—as any Lord of the Rings superfan will tell you—actor Viggo Mortensen actually broke his toe when he kicked that helmet. It's a great bit of trivia, and it's indicative of how much blood, sweat, and tears went into bringing Tolkien's story to life.

29. "If You Want Him, Come and Claim Him"

Arwen doesn't have a ton to do in the immediate action of J.R.R. Tolkien's original Lord of the Rings books, and for as wonderful as the books are, the first one is quite lacking the presence of female characters (a shame given how the ones we do see were breaking gender norms regularly). So, Peter Jackson and Co. gave Arwen (Liv Tyler) an expanded role in the trilogy, having her be the elf who brings an injured Frodo (Elijah Wood) to Rivendell in The Fellowship of the Ring. It's a cool, tense chase as she's pursued by Nazgûl, and it ends with her using magic to obliterate them with rushing water.

28. Sam vs. Shelob

Hobbits are unlikely heroes. They're small, simple folk who live in holes and prefer eating and drinking to adventuring. The moment when Sam stands up against the gigantic evil spider Shelob in order to try to protect Frodo should be kind of absurd, and yet Sam looks every bit the hero he is as he wields Sting and holds up the lit Phial of Galadriel. The entire sequence is also a chance for Jackson to flex some of his horror muscles, since the New Zealand director did get his start making gory, scary, over-the-top horror flicks.

27. "The Age of Men Is Over. The Time of the Orc Has Come."

A criticism of the fantasy genre—one that especially applies to Tolkien's foundational works—is that it dehumanizes the enemies the heroes fight. Granted, orcs are not human, but there's a case to be made that there's something not-great about portraying an entire race as nothing but evil soldiers who seemingly exist only to kill and be killed. That's why Gothmog, the somewhat deformed commander of the orcs in The Return of the King, is great. He's a bad guy, obviously, but with just a few lines, you can see that he has a personality and that he speaks to a greater ambition for his people. When he says "the time of the orc has come," it's one of the few instances in the trilogy when you might actually start to imagine what that might look like for him and his kind.

26. "They Have a Cave Troll"

The Fellowship's standoff against the hordes of goblins in Balin's Tomb deep in the ruins of Khazad-dûm is an exceptional action-sequence start-to-finish, one with clear stakes as they attempt to defend their position against an onslaught. Things get taken up a notch when a cave troll enters the tomb, forcing the entire Fellowship to fight not soldiers but a hulking monster. It helps that the cave troll still looks pretty good despite the age of the CGI.

25. "What About Side By Side With a Friend?"

"Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with an elf," is a typical bit of Gimli's comic relief, followed by Legolas wryly but earnestly asking, "What about side by side with a friend?" Though now used as the template for a meme, Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) and Legolas' admission that they are now truly friends despite the longstanding enmity between dwarves and elves is a touching payoff to the duo's evolving relationship across the three movies.

24. “If I Take One More Step, It'll Be the Farthest Away From Home I've Ever Been"

The tranquility of life in the Shire is an extremely important aspect of what makes The Lord of the Rings so effective. The Shire needs to come across as a secluded, peaceful place in order to make the act of leaving this haven to face the dangers outside feel important. It's why The Fellowship of the Ring takes a moment to note when Sam is leaving the Shire—and Sam himself notes it, too. He'll eventually scale Mount Doom, but this first step is perhaps just as vital. It also reminds us that these Hobbits aren't seasoned adventurers, and the quest ahead of them feels all the heavier and daunting for it.

23. The Last Alliance of Elves and Men

As narrated by Galadriel (Cate Blanchette), the opening of The Fellowship of the Ring explains the history of the Ring of Power, culminating in the great battle at the foot of Mount Doom where the Last Alliance of Elves and Men stood together in a desperate effort to stop Sauron that seemed destined to fail. Compared to the great battle scenes in The Two Towers and Return of the King, this opening fight is somewhat lacking—understandably, because it's essentially a history lesson and we don't know any of the characters involved yet. However, it's still plenty exciting, and it seems fantastical and epic in a kind of legendary way that the later fights don't quite achieve.

22. "For Frodo"

The big final battle outside the Black Gate at the end of The Return of the King is in a bit of a weird place narratively because this whole showdown isn't the main event. Instead, it's a diversion meant to hopefully give Frodo and Sam a chance to get the Ring of Power into the fires of Mount Doom. This makes all of the action seem a little superfluous compared to the high-stakes battle for Minas Tirith because, well, it is. That's why Aragorn's whispered, impassioned declaration that this is all "for Frodo" is the most effective part of the sequence.

21. "Get Off the Road!"

Before he directed The Lord of the Rings, Jackson made horror movies in his native New Zealand, and he puts that experience to good use in The Fellowship of the Ring when a Nazgûl nearly catches Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin on the road. It's an extremely tense scene that changes the visual language the movie had been using so far as the Nazgûl sniffs for the Hobbits as they hide in the roots of a tree. It's the first time that their quest has been dangerous, and this close encounter with the Nazgûl instantly and effectively raises the stakes to extreme levels.

20. Dark Galdriel

Another one of The Lord of the Rings horror-influenced moments comes when Galadriel briefly considers Frodo's offer to take the One Ring. Although at this point it seems like she's among the most powerful, competent, and purely good characters that Fellowship has encountered, her transformation is frightening, as is her proclamation that she would be "A queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn!" It's certainly a memorable moment, and one that speaks to Galadriel's power and restraint—as well as the influence of the One Ring. It's wise to remember that Tolkien himself said that Galadriel was "the mightiest and fairest of all the Elves that remained in Middle-earth". So, if this is how the ring affects even Galadriel, it better stay safely with Frodo until it can be destroyed.

19. All Will Fade

Return of the King features one of the most hauntingly beautiful and devastating moments in the entire trilogy. After Denathor (John Noble) sends Faramir (David Wenham) on a doomed mission to retake Osgiliath from the orcs after first admitting that he did indeed wish that Faramir had died rather than Boromir, Faramir and his men ride out to what they know will likely be their deaths. As they charge across Pelandor fields, Denathor grotesquely eats his lunch while Pippin, newly pledged to this cruel leader's service, sings a tragic song. It's one of the more overtly poetic moments of the movies.

18. Scary Bilbo

After finding it on his big adventure, Bilbo (Ian Holm) held on to the Ring of Power for many years in the Shire with seemingly no ill effect. If anything, it made him more vital and live longer. That's why it's such a surprise to see this once-affable fellow looking his age when Frodo meets up with him again in Rivendell. It's a shock, too, when he briefly sports a ghoulish face when he's tempted by the sight of his old ring around Frodo's neck. It's a legitimate jump scare, and one that shows just how destructive and dangerous the Ring is, as it can reduce Bilbo to this.

17. The Last March of the Ents

Despite Fangorn Forest's fearsome reputation, the Ents who reside inside it turn out to be mostly comic relief sorts of characters. Treebeard (Gimli actor Rhys-Davies, playing double duty) and his fellow "Shepherds of the Trees" are old, they look funny, and they take a very… long… time… to… speak. Yet Treebeard's sudden shock at seeing how Saruman (Christopher Lee) cut down countless trees sends him into a tragic rage, prompting him to call on all the Ents of Fangorn to descend on Isengard. He knows it's likely they will never return, and there's a beautiful, melancholy to this epic moment as these last remnants of an ancient sort of magic slowly march to battle.

16. "I Am No Man"

The Witch-king of Angmar, leader of the Nazgûl, was pretty cocky, considering it was prophesied that no man could kill him. What he didn't count on was that he'd face a woman warrior in Éowyn (Miranda Otto), shieldmaiden of Rohan. It's a fantastical take on Macbeth; simultaneously engaging in action movie tropes (Éowyn even has a quip before she drives her sword into the Witch-king's helmet) while also feeling extremely poetic in a fist-pumping sort of way.

15. "I'm Home"

After three movies of epic fantasy action, it's actually extremely fitting that The Lord of the Rings trilogy ends on a quiet note. After seeing Frodo off on his journey to the Undying Lands in an emotionally charged moment , Sam returns to his house in the Shire. After all his adventures, after seeing his best friend go to the West, it's Sam who remains as he approaches the front door of the domestic life he shares with his wife. "I'm home," he says, quietly, to himself. This is the moment that everything else in the trilogy was for. Bilbo's book about his adventure was titled There and Back Again; of course, Sam should get to return to a hard-fought, happy life. It took effort and sacrifice, but it's more than earned.

14. The Ring Goes South

The greatest special effect in the Lord of the Rings trilogy was the landscape and natural beauty of New Zealand, where all three films were shot. It, along with Howard Shore's iconic theme, elevates the start of the Fellowship's long journey towards Mordor. It was awe-inspiring in 2002 to see these nine people traversing across mountains, fields, and cliffs that look so fantastic you really believe they're walking across Middle-earth; it is still awe-inspiring now.

13. The Ring Is Destroyed

Shout-out to Gollum for accidentally being the one to destroy the Ring of Power and finally eliminate Sauron's evil from Middle-earth, right after Frodo finally, at the 11th hour, succumbs to the Ring's temptation. There are more exciting moments in The Return of the King than when the Ring returns to the fires of Mount Doom, but the movie recognizes the clear importance of the Ring's destruction and depicts it dramatically. (For what it's worth, what's happening inside Mount Doom is way more exciting than the big battle outside the Black Gate.)

12. "So Do All Who Live to See Such Times"

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," Frodo says during a moment of quiet reflection in the Mines of Moria with Gandalf. "So do I," the wizard replies, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." It's one of the most moving, inspirational, and beautiful exchanges that Tolkien ever wrote, and the film version of The Fellowship of the Ring gives it the grace it deserves since it cuts right to the core of the story's core ethos.

11. Frodo's Goodbye

One of the more profound aspects of The Lord of the Rings is how, despite having saved the day (or more accurately, because of what he endured to save it), Frodo, the protagonist, is fundamentally broken and doesn't get the happy ending the rest of the Fellowship does. He returns to the Shire, yes, but unlike Sam, he can't really go home again. It's why his reveal that he's going to join Bilbo and sail to Valinor hits so hard. After a tearful goodbye with his friends as he prepares to leave Middle-earth for the last time, Frodo is, for the first time in a long time, at peace.

10. "Look to My Coming"

Call it a deus ex machina all you like, but it's undeniable how welcome the sight of Gandalf (Ian McKellen) and the Rohirrim are as they appear at the crest of that ridge overlooking Helm's Deep. The battle is over when they arrive; they're less of an army and more of a force that obliterates the Uruk-hai the way sunshine dissipates darkness. It's a triumphant note to end on, especially coming on the heels of Théoden (Bernard Hill) making his bold final charge.

9. The Battle of Helm's Deep Begins

Taken as a whole, the Battle of Helm's Deep which serves as the big climactic setpiece of The Two Towers, just might be the single greatest battle sequence in cinema history. The way it begins is masterful: a rainy face-off between thousands of Uruk-hai and the relatively few, many old or untested defenders atop the fortress' mighty walls. The tension builds and builds (with space for Gimli and Legolas to crack a joke) until, just when it can't possibly get any more tense, an old man accidentally lets an arrow slip and takes out one of the Uruks. Rohan has drawn first blood and in doing so set all the chaos and carnage into motion.

8. Sam Follows Frodo

If this were a list of the greatest characters in The Lord of the Rings, Samwise Gamgee would be number one, no question. Brave, kind, and above all loyal, Sam is the character who takes care of Frodo while Frodo shoulders the impossible burden of the One Ring. When the Fellowship breaks at the end of the first movie, Frodo thinks he can't trust anybody, so he heads off to Mordor alone. But, of course, Sam won't lose him, charging into the river after Frodo even though he can't swim. It's a moment of devoted bravery—foolishly so, almost—and it speaks right to why Sam is so great.

7. The Lighting of the Beacons

There are many talented actors in The Lord of the Rings, but none of them are in one of the trilogy's best scenes. Sure, Pippin lights the first Beacon in Minas Tirith and Aragorn sees the final one in Edoras, but everything in between is just unbelievable helicopter shots of New Zealand's landscape, convincingly playing the part of Middle-earth. As beacon after beacon ignites, each bonfire getting Gondor's call for aid closer and closer to its ally Rohan, the score swells, and you've just lost yourself in the majesty of a fantastic world.

6. "You Shall Not Pass!"

The magic of Gandalf is that he is both the laid-back fellow who wants nothing more than to smoke some of the Hobbits' pipe-weed and he's an unfathomably powerful being. He shows this second side when he stands against the Balrog,a dark creature of shadow and flame that's perhaps even more powerful, and stops it from crossing the Bridge of Khazad-dum so the rest of the Fellowship can escape. It's an epic moment and an epic sacrifice, one that has huge implications for the rest of the story. Who knows what might have happened to the Fellowship had Gandalf still been around? What would have become of Rohan had Gandalf the White not been there?

5. Smeagol Banishes Gollum

Smeagol is one of the most impressive special effects in film history, especially considering how many movies from this era are borderline unwatchable because of how poorly the CGI has aged. It's an incredible performance by Serkis, too, perhaps never more so than when Smeagol is confronting Gollum, his twisted persona that the One Ring warped him into being. Using a reflection, Smeagol is having a conversation with himself, and every bit of it feels real. You're rooting for Smeagol when he appears to banish his dark side, which only makes it that much more tragic when Gollum comes out once more.

4. "My Brother My Captain My King"

Boromir (Sean Bean) and Aragorn's final words are probably the moment in The Lord of the Rings that's the most likely to make dudes break down in tears. After succumbing to the One Ring's temptation, Boromir's redemption comes as he gives his life trying to protect Merry and Pippin from Uruk-hai. Aragorn lovingly comforts him as he lies, dying, pierced by many black arrows. The animosity between them is gone, and Boromir tells the true king of Gondor that he would've followed him. It's a beautiful, tragic moment of reconciliation and atonement.

3. The Ride of the Rohirrim

The best moments of The Lord of the Rings, even at their most exciting and epic, have a sense of melancholy to them. This is the end of an age for Middle-earth; many things are happening for the last time, and many sacrifices are being made in the hopes of defeating a great evil. The arrival of the Rohirrim to Pelennor Fields in The Return of the King has shades of this. It's an incredible bit of action as the cavalry arrives to save the day, but even then, as evidenced by Théoden's speech, there's a sense of loss. "Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Spear shall be shaken, shield shall be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now, ride! Ride for ruin and the world's ending! Death! Death! Death! Forth Eorlingas!"

2. "I Will Take It"

The single bravest, most crucial moment of the entire trilogy comes when Frodo volunteers to be the one to take the Ring of Power all the way to Mordor. This wasn't supposed to be his job, he was just tasked with getting it to Rivendell, but upon seeing how the Ring was already turning the powerful men, elves, and dwarves assembled against each other, he stepped up. You can see it in Gandalf's resigned face; the wizard knows Frodo is doing the right thing. He also knows how much it will cost him.

1. "My Friends, You Bow to No One"

The Lord of the Rings is about epic heroes, mighty warriors, and kings accepting their birthright to defeat a great evil. It is also about the common folk and more humble acts of heroism that are just as important—if not more so—than the grand fantasy. The moment when Aragorn, having been crowned king of Gondor, tells Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin that they "bow to no one" is so moving because of exactly this dichotomy. However unlikely they might have been, they have more than proven that they're heroes.