Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (2003)
#4 on my Top 100 List
There is a scene toward the end of this movie where Merry, Pippin, Frodo and Sam are sitting at a table in the Green Dragon in the Shire. They look around for a moment, then toast each other. It's clear in their eyes - nothing is ever going to be the same. It's a very powerful scene that I think sums up the message of the entire trilogy: your experiences change you. It's just one of several amazing scene in this movie, including the lighting of the beacons of Gondor, the arrival of the Rohirrim at the Pelennor Fields, Gandalf staring down the Ringwraiths, Faramir's "death," Gandalf telling Pippin about Heaven, the entire Paths of the Dead sequence, the fall of the tower of Barad-Dur, Aragorn's coronation (which makes me cry), the reunion of the Fellowship and the final parting at the Grey Havens (which makes me bawl my eyes out). I love that Merry and Pippin both get to fight in battle in this one, that Legolas and Gimli finally admit their friendship, that Eowyn finally gets to show off how badass she is, and that when the Gondorians find their city under attack from the orcs, they start catapulting pieces of their broken buildings back at them. Take that, Mordor! But above anything else, the scene where Pippin is asked to sing for Denethor (the bat-shit insane steward of Gondor), who is eating dinner while his son Faramir rides to almost certain death, is one of the most beautifully shot and edited scenes that I have ever seen. Billy Boyd's voice is perfect - it gives me chills.
My Netflix rating: 5 stars
and the fact that he wrote that song and sang it there live, its crazy.
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