How Long Are The Theatrical & Extended Editions?

There are plenty of prolonged cinematic experiences out there these days, but few of them have maintained their enduring appeal quite as long as Peter Jackson’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Available in both long theatrical and extreme extended edition formats, binging through “The Fellowship of the Ring,” “The Two Towers,” and “The Return of the King” from sundown to sunset has become a favorite past-time for Tolkien fans everywhere (including yours truly).

If you’re planning on a marathon soon, you may be wondering just how long the experience will be. How many meals do you have to account for? How many bathroom breaks will you need? How early should you start?

Let’s start with the big picture. If you binge the theatrical version of the Middle-earth trilogy back to back, the full runtime is a butt-numbing 558 minutes long. That’s nine hours and 17 minutes, for those of you counting at home.

Sounds like a lot, right? It’s chump change compared to the full extended experience — a commitment that will consume 726 minutes, or 12 hours and six minutes of your life. Even for those, like myself, who consider the investment well worth it even for the 100th rewatch, sitting through these things is a mammoth undertaking akin to swimming from Valinor back to Middle-earth, like Galadriel attempts to do in the easter-egg-riddled opening episode of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power.”

If you decide you can’t fit the entire trilogy into a single day, or you want to plan out your chances to restock your snacks and empty your bladder between films, don’t worry. I’ve got all of the individual breakdowns for you below. May the Valar favor you in your quest!

Let’s start with the original experience. The runtimes for the theatrical versions of “The Lord of the Rings” are listed below:

• “The Fellowship of the Ring”: 2 hours and 58 minutes (178 minutes)

• “The Two Towers”: 2 hours and 59 minutes (179 minutes)

• “The Return of the King”: 3 hours and 21 minutes (201 minutes)

Before we move on, I want to make one thing clear: Even as a diehard fan who obsesses over this stuff way too much, I don’t think it’s somehow cheating or taking a shortcut to watch the theatrical versions instead of the extended ones. These are the official adaptations that Peter Jackson initially released to the public, and they’re cut down to a size, scope, and flow that is ideal for the cinematic format. Sure, you get a ton of added scenes and lore-heavy content in the longer versions, but if you want the best cinematic experience, this is probably the way to go.

The fact that it saves you 168 minutes of viewing time and makes the entire affair easier to fit into a single session is a significant bonus, too.

OK, it’s time for the big ones. There are plenty of extended edition experiences out there, but few (if any) give you enough content to make up an entire fourth movie. Across the three movies, Jackson delivers a mouth-watering 168 minutes of additional content. This includes some of the best scenes in the entire trilogy, like the “Concerning Hobbits” intro, the Mouth of Sauron sequence, and Merry and Pippin discovering pipeweed at Isengard.

How long are they, though? Here are the runtimes:

• “The Fellowship of the Ring”: 3 hours and 48 minutes (228 minutes, including 50 minutes of extra footage)

• “The Two Towers”: 3 hours and 55 minutes (235 minutes, including 56 minutes of new footage)

• “The Return of the King”: 4 hours and 23 minutes (263 minutes, including 53 minutes of fresh footage and several additional minutes of end credits)

Add it all up, and you get nearly three additional hours of pure Middle-earth magic along with the original Jackson-approved viewing time. Another way to look at it? You could watch the theatrical versions and then tack “Gladiator” (which came out around the same time) onto the end and still have 13 extra minutes to spare.

The natural follow question to all of this is: How long is the “Hobbit” trilogy? After all, if you’re willing to sit down for 12 hours, why not tack another trilogy onto the experience and make it a nearly 24-hour experience? If you’re considering that kind of marathon (one that I aspire to but have not yet dared to attempt), here are the theatrical runtimes for your consideration:

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: 2 hours and 49 minutes (169 minutes)

• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: 2 hours and 41 minutes (161 minutes)

• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: 2 hours and 24 minutes (144 minutes)

That comes to a grand total of 474 minutes, or seven hours and 54 minutes. 

As for the extended editions? Here are those runtimes:

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: 3 hours and 2 minutes (13 additional minutes totaling 182 minutes)

• The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug: 3 hours and six minutes (25 additional minutes totaling 186 minutes)

• The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: 2 hours and 37 minutes (13 additional minutes totaling 157 minutes)

The grand total here comes to a neat 525 minutes, or eight hours and 45 minutes.

So, let’s regroup. If you want to watch through the theatrical version of both trilogies, you’re committing to a gargantuan viewing session that will last 17 hours and 12 minutes, or 1,032 minutes. And if you go all in for the extended edition of all six films? You’re looking at a grand total of 20 hours and 51 minutes, or an eye-watering 1,251 minutes.

All that’s left at that point is to tack the two hour and 14 minute “War of the Rohirrim” prequel onto the beginning as a warm-up, and you’re good to go. Bonus points if you can spot all six Peter Jackson cameos while you’re watching, too!