The Hobbit film trilogy
Shares rank 19 of 24 films by recommenders
Recommended for clearer battle scenes in the fan edit and high frame rate versions. Critics say splitting the book into three films padded it out.
Recommended for clearer battle scenes in the fan edit and high frame rate versions. Critics say splitting the book into three films padded it out.
20 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 5
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 25%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 5 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Split one book into padded films
“Someone got greedy and decided to split it up into three movies, and it was such a drag watching all of them”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “An Uncomplicated Man” “stretch it out so long that you have to add material, and that doing so can make it worse”
Comment from 28 Jul 2026 in “Please, Don't Screw Up Neuromancer” “If they managed to make 3 full movies out of The Hobbit”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “New 'Lord of the Rings' Movie from Stephen Colbert and His Son in Development” - Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “New 'Lord of the Rings' Movie from Stephen Colbert and His Son in Development”
Departs from the book
“The book isn't the epic that the movie makes it out to be.”
Comment from 2 Mar 2026 in “Tove Jansson's criticized illustrations of The Hobbit” “The Hobbit movies had nothing to do with the books.”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “JRR Tolkien reads from The Hobbit for 30 Minutes (1952)” “both bad adaptations and bad movies”
Comment from 12 Jan 2026 in “JRR Tolkien reads from The Hobbit for 30 Minutes (1952)” Weak soundtrack and filmmaking
“Hobbit was soso, just because old crew was filming it.”
Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “New 'Lord of the Rings' Movie from Stephen Colbert and His Son in Development” “the soundtrack to The Hobbit sounds completely generic and boring, and the result is unwatchable.”
Comment from 16 May 2026 in “Nearly 50 Years Later, WKRP in Cincinnati Becomes a Real Radio Station” “can still make a really awful movie”
Comment from 5 Jul 2026 in “Hollywood's spent 25 years chasing the wrong lessons from The Lord of the Rings” - Comment from 17 Oct 2026 in “Butlerian Jihad”
Other films people recommend
The four most recommended other films, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan | 50 | 37 | 57% | 7 | — | — |
| Perfect Days (2023 film) | 19 | 1 | 95% | 9 | — | Approved |
| The Secret Agent (2025 film) | 18 | 9 | 67% | 2 | — | — |
| One Battle After Another | 17 | 14 | 55% | 5 | — | — |
| The Hobbit film trilogyThis page | 5 | 15 | 25% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
19 of the 20 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“suffering from movie elephantiasis”
“That does sound like an improvement over the actual Hobbit movies”
“I was particularly annoyed by the barrels-down-the-river scene”
“stretch it out so long that you have to add material, and that doing so can make it worse”
“Someone got greedy and decided to split it up into three movies, and it was such a drag watching all of them”
“It's not that the Hobbit sucked as much as LOTR was the exception that proved the studio rule.”
“can still make a really awful movie”
“the soundtrack to The Hobbit sounds completely generic and boring, and the result is unwatchable.”
“Hobbit was soso, just because old crew was filming it.”
“The Hobbit as 3 films? Really?”
“If they managed to make 3 full movies out of The Hobbit”
“The book isn't the epic that the movie makes it out to be.”
“I also hated that scene; I started to root for Sauron when I saw that scene.”
“we're still going to ignore the hobbit movie trilogy, though.”
“both bad adaptations and bad movies”
“The Hobbit movies had nothing to do with the books.”
“everything was soooo smooth”
“It made the huge battles much easier to follow and I felt like I picked up a lot more of the details.”
“is way better than the released version”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.