20 Greatest Direct Sequels Ever Made

8. Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers

Back To The Future II
New Line Cinema

Movies that are explicitly designed to be the middle part of a trilogy always face a difficult balancing act between furthering the journey of the characters and moving the story along towards the final installment without dragging their heels and padding out the running time with too much setup, and few films in recent memory have managed that balancing act anywhere near as well as Peter Jackson's second foray into Middle-Earth.

Although it clocks in at a butt-numbing 179 minutes, splitting up the Fellowship into smaller groups gives the narrative much more room to breathe and fleshes out the huge cast of characters, while the introduction of Gollum and The Battle of Helm's Deep provide two iconic cinematic moments that heightened anticipation for Return of the King to fever pitch the moment the end credits began.

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