<P> Unadjusted for inflation, The Lord of the Rings film series is the highest - grossing film trilogy worldwide of all time, higher even than other film franchises such as the original Star Wars trilogy and The Godfather trilogy . The film series grossed a total of $2.91 billion and also tied a record with Ben - Hur and Titanic for the total number of Academy Awards won for a single film, with The Return of the King receiving eleven Oscars . </P> <P> The majority of critics have also praised the series, with Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times writing that "the trilogy will not soon, if ever, find its equal". Some were critical of the films' pacing and length: "It's a collection of spectacular set pieces without any sense of momentum driving them into one another" according to Philadelphia Weekly . </P> <P> On Rotten Tomatoes, the films received approval ratings of 91%, 96%, and 95% respectively . Metacritic, based on its ratings for each film (92, 88, and 94 respectively), features the series within the top ten of the best films of the decade . As of July 2016, every film is placed in the top 200 of Metacritic's' Best Movies of all Time' list . In CinemaScore polls conducted during the opening weekend, cinema audiences gave the films an average grade of A -, A, and A+ respectively on an A+ to F scale . </P> <P> The series appears in the Dallas - Fort Worth Film Critics Association's Top 10 Films, Time magazine's All - Time 100 Movies, and James Berardinelli's Top 100 . In 2007, USA Today named the series as the most important films of the past 25 years . Entertainment Weekly put it on its end - of - the - decade, "best - of" list, saying, "Bringing a cherished book to the big screen? No sweat . Peter Jackson's trilogy--or, as we like to call it, our preciousssss--exerted its irresistible pull, on advanced Elvish speakers and neophytes alike ." Paste Magazine named it one of the 50 Best Movies of the Decade (2000--2009), ranking it at No. 4 . In another Time magazine list, the series ranks second in "Best Movies of the Decade". Empire magazine voted the films at #1 on the' 32 Greatest Film Trilogies' . In addition, six characters and their respective actors made the list of' The 100 Greatest Movie Characters', also compiled by Empire, with Viggo Mortensen's portrayal of Aragorn ranking No. 15, Ian McKellen's portrayal of Gandalf ranking No. 30, Ian Holm's portrayal of Bilbo Baggins (shared with Martin Freeman for his portrayal of the same character in The Hobbit films) ranking No. 61, Andy Serkis' portrayal of Gollum ranking No. 66, Sean Astin's portrayal of Samwise Gamgee ranking No. 77, and Orlando Bloom's portrayal of Legolas ranking No. 94 . </P>

When did the lord of the rings movies come out