The Lord of the Rings 4K Blu-ray box set is discounted for Black Friday on Amazon

The transition of The Lord of the Rings trilogy to 4K UHD resolution is truly amazing. Middle-earth comes alive with visual and audio enhancements delivered by Dolby Vision HDR10 and Dolby Atmos 5.1 surround sound. The only downside to this collection is that it no longer comes with vouchers for digital versions of the movies.

The Lord of the Rings: The Movie Trilogy doesn’t include any of the traditional special features, but you still get two hours of content that won’t be shown in theaters. If you haven’t watched the extended cut yet, you’re in for a treat. Each film is significantly longer than its theatrical counterpart, which is impressive considering the trilogy has already run for nine hours in theaters. The extended cut of The Fellowship of the Ring was 30 minutes longer, The Two Towers was 44 minutes longer, and The Return of the King was 51 minutes longer. The extended version of The Return of the King is one of those rare films that exceeds four hours.

Each film’s extended cuts are spread out over two discs, while the theatrical releases each get one disc. The full runtimes for the Lord of the Rings trilogy theatrical and extended editions are as follows:

Lord of the Rings movie cut

• The Fellowship of the Ring – 178 minutes (2 hours 58 minutes)
• The Two Towers – 179 minutes (2 hours 59 minutes)
• The Return of the King – 200 minutes (3 hours 20 minutes)

Total runtime: 9 hours 18 minutes

The Lord of the Rings Extended Cut

• The Fellowship of the Ring – 208 minutes (3 hours 28 minutes)
• The Two Towers – 223 minutes (3 hours 43 minutes)
• The Return of the King – 251 minutes (4 hours 11 minutes)

Total runtime: 11 hours 22 minutes

The 4K Blu-ray box set of The Hobbit trilogy is available on Amazon for $59.

If you’re a big fan of The Lord of the Rings, you might want to add the recently released Walmart exclusive version of The Fellowship of the Ring to your shelves. The case shown above is identical to the Lord of the Rings trilogy steelbook collection. Walmart is simply selling the first movie on its own. I’m hoping The Two Towers and The Return of the King will be released next, but I’m not sure if Walmart will stock all three.

Nonetheless, the limited edition steelbook of The Fellowship of the Ring is a nice display piece in its own right. The film includes the same 4K Blu-ray remaster and special features as the films in the $55 collection, but a voucher for the digital edition is also available.

Fellowship of the Ring’s limited edition 4K steelbook has already sold out more than once since pre-orders began, but it’s in stock for $35 and available to ship now.

If you don’t have a 4K media player, there are plenty of standard Blu-ray collections of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Most notably, you can purchase the remastered Lord of the Rings Trilogy Blu-ray box set from Amazon for just $18.19 (was $25). Remastered in 2021 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Fellowship of the Ring, this is of higher quality than previous Blu-ray releases. This particular set includes the theatrical cut, but there is a remastered version with the extended cut for $40 (not for sale).

The 4K UHD edition is definitely better, and you get both cuts, but the remastered 1080p release still looks great.

Meanwhile, the Hobbit Trilogy Theatrical Collection is available on Amazon for just $16.36. Alternatively, you can get The Hobbit Trilogy Extended Collection from Walmart for $30 (was $40).