Poster art for "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring."

Gifts + Promos

The Vow Free Gift

Buy tickets & receive a FREE 3-Month Love Forecast from Astrology.com!

Fandango Bucks

Send your sweetheart the gift of movies this Valentine’s Day!

Journey Sweeps

Enter for a chance to win a trip for 2 to Nicaragua!

Interactive Oscar Ballot

Who's taking home the Oscar? Cast your vote & challenge your friends on Facebook!

Need Help?
Must Go!
Avg. Critic Score: 92 out of 100 Universal acclaim Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
12 OK for kids 12+
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 100
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Fellowship is the real deal, a movie epic that pops your eyes out, piles on thrills and fun, and yet stays intimately attuned to character. Read full review

  • 100
    Washington Post | Desson Thomson

    You believe in everything. Read full review

  • 100
    Washington Post | Rita Kempley

    With its spectacular scenery, stupefying effects and epic scope, is a dream come true. Read full review

  • 100
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    Gets it right. It's a wonderful movie. Watching it, one can't help but get the impression that everyone involved was steeped in Tolkien's work, loved the book, treasured it and took care not to break a cherished thing in it. Read full review

  • 100
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    Made with intelligence, imagination, passion and skill, propulsively paced and shot through with an aged-in-oak sense of wonder, the trilogy's first film so thrillingly catches us up in its sweeping story that nothing matters but the vivid and compelling events unfolding on the screen. Read full review

  • 100
    Entertainment Weekly | Lisa Schwarzbaum

    Vibrantly, intricately alive on its own terms. This is what magic the movies can conjure with an inspired fellowship in charge, and unlimited pots of gold. Read full review

  • 90
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    Looks to please the book's legions of fans with its imaginatively scrupulous rendering of the tome's characters and worlds on the screen, as well as the uninitiated with its uninterrupted flow of incident and spectacle. Read full review

  • 90
    The New York Times | A.O. Scott

    The playful spookiness of Mr. Jackson's direction provides a lively, light touch, a gesture that doesn't normally come to mind when Tolkien's name is mentioned. Read full review

  • 75
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    That it transcends this genre -- that it is a well-crafted and sometimes stirring adventure -- is to its credit. But a true visualization of Tolkien's Middle-earth it is not. Read full review

  • 75
    USA Today | Claudia Puig

    Rings has moments of edge-of-the-seat excitement, too, such as when the dark riders come looking for Frodo. But it's occasionally tedious when it should be captivating. Read full review

View more reviews for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says OK for kids 12+ Fabulous, but also violent and scary.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this classic fantasy is full of violence and danger, including death. Horrific medieval-esque creatures kill, mostly with arrows and swords. More often, though, they get impaled, decapitated, dismemebered themselves. Middle-Earth characters drink beverages that are akin to wine and beer and smoke something called "pipeweed." There is some don't-try-this-at-home playing around with fireworks.
  • Families can talk about why it is that only Frodo seems immune to the ring's power to corrupt even honorable, wise, and powerful people and the notion that "even the smallest person can change the course of the earth."
  • If you were going to form a fellowship for a grand quest, who would you want to be in it?
The good stuff
  • message true4 Positive messages: Strong theme of the meekest, smallest folk -- personified by Frodo Baggins, the hobbit -- becoming greatest heroes in a perilous quest. Gandalf advises Frodo against killing wantonly. Evil forces of Mordor and Saruman are associated with industrialization (more so in the followup The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers), whereas the hobbit and mystic elf races are more reverent of nature.
  • rolemodels true4 Positive role models: The very innocence of Frodo, Samwise, and the other peace-loving hobbits becomes their strength, as greed and the temptation contained in the One Ring tear apart the alliance, preying on the allegedly stronger characters. Hobbits are still shown as mischief-making and fun-loving (and weed-smoking). Lust for power is said to be a particular flaw in the race called "Man," though the long-lost King Aragorn is one noble warrior who does not succumb. Strong female characters are not too prominent in the Tolkien novel but get represented here (even if they are elves, not humans).
What to watch for
  • violence false4 Violence: Death and attempted murder by arrows and swords, including the agonizing killing of one character in a pincushion of arrows. People fall from great heights. Wizards batter each other bloody with invisible forces. A toothy, squid-like creature tries to eat the heroes. Supernatural creatures set on fire, impaled, decapitated and dismembered. Lots of gnarled skeletons and bodies showing signs of violent death.
  • sex false0 Sex: Topless female nude statuary is a barely noticed background feature of the architecture of Rivendell, the village of Elves.
  • language false0 Language: Not an issue
  • consumerism false2 Consumerism: Hard to ignore the original Tolkien books, not to mention a plethora of video games, movie tie-in action figures, role-playing games, plus the movie sequels and other existing adaptations.
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false2 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Gandalf and hobbits smoke "pipeweed," a clearly enjoyable experience that makes playful smoke rings and figures. Drinking of vintage wine-like beverages, talk of beer.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Movie Ratings + Reviews

Fans say

Must Go! 279 fan reviews

Critics say

Must Go! See all critic reviews

Facebook Movie Fans

Fan Fandango on Facebook