For which Lord of the Rings film did Peter Jackson win an Academy Award for Best Director?

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King is a 2003 epic high fantasy adventure film directed by Peter Jackson. At the 76th Academy Awards, this film won all 11 Academy Awards for which it was nominated, therefore holding the record for highest Oscar sweep. The wins included the an Academy Award for Best Director for Peter Jackson, New Zealand filmmaker.

Jackson who was also nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director for the film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) did not win an award at that time. He had to wait for the final film in the trilogy to win the Best Director award.

Released on December 17, 2003, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King received rave reviews and universal fame. It is one of the greatest box office successes of all time. It is only one of two films to gross over $1 billion worldwide.

Accordingly, Peter Jackson is now best known as the director, writer and producer of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001–03).

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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10 Comments

lls

I loved that film, both the theater version and the extended cut! I get towards the last 40 minutes of it, and I don't have a dry eye to spare!

Corey Taylor

"The Return Of The King" remains the only three-quel in film history to win Best Picture.

dmarkc

Watched it yesterday.

JRW

Half didn't think he won an Oscar! I am surprised.

Lawanta

John W Shreve, I'll have to try and remember all those great trivia facts for future use! 😉

earlepg

John W Shreve, Thats the way I see it too. Great movies, better books.

teacherchicky

The nominations and Oscars were actually for ALL three of the installments. Technically, he won for Return of the King but the trilogy was so amazing he was rewarded for all of them by word of mouth! Well deserved Oscar!

John W Shreve

The Lord of the Rings received 17 Oscars by the time the trilogy came to a close, but the majority of its big wins came from The Return of the King. Although The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers took home prizes for Sound Editing, Special Effects, and Cinematography, they didn’t snag any wins in the major awards categories. Maybe this isn't how it works, but I always felt that the Academy was confident that "Return" would be fabulous and saved the most important award for the kicker. We rarely hear about the many Academy Award categories there are, but the series received 475 awards out of 800 nominations, thus making the films the most awarded film series in cinematic history.