8. The Lord of the Rings
You don't want to count Star Wars? Fair enough. But you most certainly can't weasel your way out of
The Lord of the Rings. The opening to the trilogy was all we needed to convince ourselves we were sitting through the next great epic of tales. Peter Jackson led with vigor and splendor, and what a delight it was to see a movie of such magnitude bombastically sweeping over the audience. If we did happen to feel cheated with
The Phantom Menace and promises that
Star Wars was something that would never have an equal, then
The Fellowship of the Ring was the quick remedy. And the sequels were either on par or better than the already infallible original. We were able to listen in on adults become completely wrapped up in pictures that we were lucky enough to experience in childhood, where our imaginations would take us leaps and bounds over the frames that were presented. When
Return of the King concluded in 2003, we got to witness not just the end of what proved to be quite the filmmaking achievement, but our first sweeping of the Academy Awards. It was a trilogy of films that truly affected Hollywood and audiences, and its resonating effect still lingers and excites as Jackson return next month with
The Hobbit.