9. Size & Scale
The Lord of the Rings took movies to a size and scale to a level not really seen before or since. Within five minutes of the start of the first film, a battle with thousands of participants is shown and over the next ten hours, the audience is assaulted by the sights and sounds of Middle Earth almost non-stop. Places like Minas Tirith, Mordor, and Isengard come to life during the run-time and spectacular battles form the climax of all three films with the Battle of Pelennor Fields remaining arguably the most impressive screen battle of all-time. Even the simplest scenes take on an epic feel under Jackson's care. Scenes of the Fellowship walking by ruins on a mountainside are breathtaking in their own right and and the filmmakers seem to delight in surprising the audience at every chance with how impressive they can make everything on screen. It almost feels like Jackson's answer to everything was to make it bigger, and rarely has bigger equaled better like it has in these movies.