10 Amazing Movies Over Three Hours Long

2. The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King

The Lord Of The Rings The Return Of The King Frodo Baggins Elijah Wood
Warner Bros. Pictures

Runtime: 3 hours 21 minutes

A watershed moment for blockbuster cinema, The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King won all eleven Academy Awards it was nominated for - including Best Picture - something unheard of for movies of this scale and genre.

Where the Oscars usually prefer to honour smaller arthouse fare, Return Of The King is a big, exciting movie where an elf murders an elephant with a bow and arrow. The way it blends superb effects, pulse-pounding action and soul-destroying emotion is truly magnificent, and it wholly deserved every single one of those statues that it won.

Because it had to wrap up several stories - Frodo and Sam's quest to destroy the One Ring, Aragorn's rightful kingship - it earns each minute of its huge runtime, and though you could argue that it should have ended 15 minutes sooner, it was important that every major character was given a fitting (sometimes lengthy) conclusion to their tale.

If you want an even longer version, the extended edition adds a bunch of extra scenes, but you're not missing out on anything major by sticking with the regular cut.

Contributor
Contributor

Danny has been with WhatCulture for over ten years, and is currently Doctor Who Editor and WhoCulture Channel Manager, overseeing all of WhatCulture's Whoniverse coverage. In 2022, he took charge of WhoCulture and has grown it into the biggest Doctor Who channel on YouTube, and one of the biggest Doctor Who communities on the web full-stop. He has been writing and video editing since his early teens, and first got a taste for content creation after making his own Doctor Who trailers, off the back of a burning obsession with the Matt Smith era of the show. Like many his age, he first got into Doctor Who with the 2005 revival, but has since gone back and fallen in love with the classic years too. If you need someone to recite every Doctor Who episode in order, or to give you a random factoid about the making of Gridlock, Danny is the person to ask!