The Lord of the Reels: Ranking the films of Peter Jackson
With the release of the Extended Edition of The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, it looks like Peter Jackson’s stay in Middle-earth is drawing to a close. But take a step back from the Tolkien adaptations, and what you’ll see is an even richer, diverse body of work, ranging from alien invasions and zombie infestation to finely tuned drama and devious documentary work.
So what better time than now to go through the New Zealand director’s back catalogue, and rank all fourteen of his feature-length films in order of greatness? Counting from Jackson’s worst right up to his very best, this is our close look at the work of the Lord of the Reels himself.
14. Bad Taste (1987)
Ever since his very first movie, it’s clear Peter Jackson was in love with squeezing as much blood, guts and gore as he possibly could into every frame. And the plot of Bad Taste, his big-screen debut, is just as ambitious – and bonkers – as his video-nasty sensibilities; the population of the small New Zealand town of Kaihoro has been replaced by alien imposters, and a group of friends bent on uncovering the conspiracy discover the real reason behind this intergalactic invasion: they want to turn us into fast-food, and open a chain right here on Earth.
Shot with many of Jackson’s real-life friends on an obvious low budget, the story may be the gleeful result of the comic sensibilities of a young Jackson running wild in his own back yard (quite literally), but there’s little in Bad Taste to validate its rise from student-film curiosity to the cult hit it’s since become. But there are also glimpses of what would make him stand out among his Hollywood peers in later years, like an incredible use of miniatures, which would be used to their greatest effect in his later Lord of the Rings films, plus wonderfully gloopy make-up effects which Jackson largely did himself, and a morbid sense of humour that would mature film by film.
13. Meet the Feebles (1989)
Further cementing Jackson as an auteur of grotesquerie is 1989’s Meet the Feebles, a black-comedy-musical that offended, disgusted and wildly entertained audiences with its filthily humoured, Muppets-inspired antics. But these critters are far from the cuddly world of Kermit and Miss Piggy; Heidi, a pink hippopotamus and star of the Feebles stage show, finds herself in a love triangle with her boss (and fellow fuzzy) Bletch – a walrus – and his lover, Samantha, a poodle. Now that you’ve got an idea of the strangeness of this table-flip of genre, you can believe us when we say it’s one of Jackson’s most interesting movies – if far from his best.
Some of the humour in Feebles is perhaps a little too blue – even if it is coming from someone made completely of felt – and many of the subplots feel inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. But the real star of the show here is Jackson; his knack for building a world so ridiculous, with such a bizarre tone that somehow doesn’t crumble under its own silliness, is hugely impressive as it is. And the explosive, bullet-ridden climax actually ranks with some of the director’s most memorable, singular sequences. Five words: hippo with a machine gun.
12. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012)
The first of Peter Jackson’s hotly anticipated Hobbit movies met with a lukewarm reception. And although criticisms that 2012’s An Unexpected Journey is slowly paced are well-founded, as well as the other flaws the movie has, it remains a visually glorious romp with an adventurous spirit. But that’s something Bilbo Baggins lacks, a hobbit very much stuck in his quaint old ways, before a mysterious old wizard by the name of Gandalf comes knocking on his door promising him exactly that: an adventure. A ragtag group of dwarves wish to take back their homeland Erebor, and reclaim their treasure from the terrible dragon Smaug – and Bilbo fits the bill to help them. Their journey will take them from encounters with trolls, elves, and goblins – and Bilbo may even find a certain pesky ring lying about.
An Unexpected Journey does takes its time in getting going, and spends the entirety of its character work almost exclusively on Bilbo, Gandalf and Thorin while leaving the rest of the dwarven group undeveloped – not that we really need a backstory for Bombur – but there’s a curious lightness to the film’s tone that makes it far more playful and humorous than Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But it would take until the series’ second instalment, The Desolation of Smaug, for things to genuinely kick into gear.
11. The Frighteners (1996)
The Frighteners is a terrific concept for a movie: Frank Bannister, played by the ever-loveable Michael J. Fox, can communicate with the dead, and has devised a cunning plan. Step 1: make friends with the ghosts. Step 2: get them to invade some innocent family’s house. Step 3: arrive, claiming to be a ghost exterminator. Step 4: once the faux-exorcism is done, collect the cash. Frank is, essentially, a supernatural con-artist.
Firstly, having Michael J. Fox as your lead is going to do wonders for your movie – but The Frighteners does suffer from a few problems. Although the story zigs and zags in wildly inventive turns, the thing stopping the movie becoming one of Peter Jackson’s very best is its carelessly veering tone: at points, the movie becomes jarringly dark and violent, and at others, so goofy as to merit no small amount of eye-rolling. But when the movie gets going in its final act, nothing can stop it: Fox’s on-screen presence, Jackson’s eye for gruesome yet lively visuals and a great supporting cast make sure this is one of the director’s more beloved, if lesser, works.
10. The Lovely Bones (2009)
Universally panned on release, The Lovely Bones is Peter Jackson’s least critically well-received work of his career. But there’s a richness to be found on every level of the film, so much that to outright condemn it would be to ignore what it has to offer. There’s a duelling ugliness and beauty at its centre, which seems to be largely the reason it was so unloved; complaints that the tonal shifts were too sudden and too obvious drowned out any other praise the film might have received. But that dualism of jarring moral hideousness and angelic innocence is the very heart of Jackson’s The Lovely Bones – and it’s used to spectacular ends.
Adapted from Alice Sebold’s bestselling book, the story takes Susie Salmon – played by Saiorse Ronan in one of her best roles – on a disturbing, tragic trip into the afterlife when she falls victim to George Harvey – played by a terrifying Stanley Tucci – a sexual predator with unthinkable intentions. Following her disappearance, the rest of her heartbroken family attempt to get on with their lives, while Susie is stuck in limbo, staying the same while watching her loved ones age from afar. Jackson’ used of layered metaphor here is breathtaking, even if the film’s sentimentality doesn’t always reconcile with its darker moments – but it’s hard to shrug that lump in your throat once the credits roll.
9. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies (2014)
Jackson has never been one to shy away from going big, and in that respect, The Battle of the Five Armies is the full-stop in his career. Many complained – and still complain – about Jackson deciding to expand his two-film treatment for The Hobbit, the literary precursor to The Lord of the Rings, into its own mega-sized trilogy; but there’s no cinematic rulebook stating that one simple children’s novel must be adapted that way: Jackson brings a grit and epic feel to his third Hobbit flick, the continuation of a tonal shift that started with An Unexpected Journey‘s more whimsical feel.
Yes, it is indulgent in every single way; yes, it is not exactly the most faithful adaptation of Tolkien – these things we know already. And yes – Jackson was hugely unprepared for the trilogy as a whole once Del Toro stepped out, as revealed in the extras on the Extended Edition DVD. It’s a miracle, then, that The Battle of the Five Armies turned out as a reasonably rousing finish to a poorly treated trio of blockbusters.
8. The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013)
Most of the problems of An Unexpected Journey disappeared when The Desolation of Smaug, the second instalment in The Hobbit trilogy, arrived. From the word ‘go,’ the adventure continued with a breathless increase of stakes and tension, a widening of the palette in Howard Shore’s exquisite score, and a healthy expansion of the cast that included memorable characters, some new and some familiar.
Typically, the second film in almost any trilogy suffers from ‘middle chapter problems’; sometimes, the middle film has neither the exciting feel of being introduced to a new world like the first may do, nor does it offer a satisfying conclusion that the concluding part could provide. The exception is this film, which provides an amping up on every level that the first movie perhaps lacked in. Strongest of its improvements are those new host of characters: Luke Evans brings Bard the bowman to a life that he never received on the page, and we get a superb introduction to a timeless screen villain, Smaug the terrible. If one movie from the Hobbit trilogy could hold a candle to Jackson’s other Middle-earth trio of films, it’s this one.
7. King Kong (2005)
You’d imagine that, having just come off the back of the gigantic endeavour that was The Lord of the Rings, Jackson may have wanted his next project to be something much smaller, and easier to manage: what he did next, to no one’s real surprise, was achieve his life-long dream – remake King Kong. And what a spectacle it was: boasting unbelievable special effects (in no small part to the incredible mo-cap performance from Andy Serkis as Kong) that brought the epic sweep of the movie to life, it all swirled around tender human moments that entirely sold the idea that a gigantic gorilla could fall in love with a woman a fraction the size.
Clocking in at 3 hours and 21 minutes, Kong is a lengthy exploit – but every minute is utilised to maximum effect, granted to a filmmaker who knows how to use their running time well. Even if you take away the central ingenuity of Serkis’s Kong, you’d still be left with terrific performances from Naomi Watts, Adrien Brody, and a brilliantly cast Jack Black, who all defy their colourful stereotypes; Jackson’s Kong, a love letter to event pictures of old, never loses the human heart underneath all that silver fur. Talking of silver…
6. Forgotten Silver (1995)
Every director has their own lost gem, hidden among their larger and more well-known works; Forgotten Silver is Peter Jackson’s lost gem, a TV movie mockumentary he co-directed with fellow New Zealand filmmaker Costa Botes. Airing on New Zealand TV under the assumption that it was a 100% true documentary, it followed Colin Mackenzie, a native movie director who was the first to invent colour film, devised a biblical epic that dwarfed anything by Cecil B. DeMille, and even caught footage of the very first manned flight. It was, of course, all complete hogwash – but such was Jackson and Botes’ subtle blend of cheeky humour and straight face for the duration, almost the entire nation was fooled once the mockumentary had aired, much to the dismay – and in some cases, outright fury – of New Zealanders.
This hugely evocative mixture of fantasy and reality – constructed from Jackson and Botes’ deep understanding of the power of mythmaking, in cinema and outside it – would go on to distinguish the later years of Jackson’s career, as he had by this point already veered from the gore and laughter of his early splatter-fests with 1994’s Heavenly Creatures. Forgotten Silver effortlessly engrosses you in a intricately-spun lie, and the life of a man who never actually existed. Just like watching any movie, then.
5. Braindead (1992)
A quick Google of 1992’s Braindead boasts that it’s one of the goriest films ever made. All those horror lists aren’t wrong: the final third of Jackson’s horror-comedy is devoted to showing us as much blood, guts and vomit-worthy nastiness as it possibly can in an epic splatter showdown – but let’s focus on the real reasons why Braindead is so beloved, which are its brilliantly drawn characters and its superb, simple story. Lionel Cosgrove (played with pitch-perfect buffoonery by Timothy Balme) is taken for a tough time when his overbearing mother is bitten by a Sumatran Rat Monkey, which then turns her into a zombie. The infection spreads through the town, with Lionel at the centre of it all armed with only a lawnmower; the film’s infamous final third can only be described by imagining Buster Keaton getting teleported into Evil Dead 2.
Braindead – or as it’s known around the world by its alternative title, Dead Alive – is filled with too many classic scenes to list here; what makes it succeed is its utter devotion to disgust and astound in equal measure, while leaving loads of room for closer analysis with its none-too-subtle metaphors regarding messed up mother-son relationships. For a movie called Braindead, it’s a lot smarter than it first appears.
4. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
According to Jackson himself, The Two Towers was by far the most difficult to make of all three Lord of the Rings movies. Editing together the masses of footage to create a cohesive story with its own beginnings and conclusions, and to intercut individual storylines that were told linearly in Tolkien’s book, would never have been an easy feat – yet when The Two Towers was released a year after its landscape-changing predecessor, it was met with even higher acclaim.
Is it because of the slew of fantastic new characters like Eowyn and Treebeard, and the deepening of Saruman’s role? The glorious battle at Helm’s Deep? Essentially, The Two Towers succeeds because, although the story got off to a tremendously exciting start in The Fellowship of the Ring, it’s here that it first feels like that story genuinely means something – much like how Samwise Gamgee’s speech at the film’s close describes.
3. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003)
Perhaps the greatest conclusion to any filmed trilogy, The Return of the King exquisitely and operatically delivers on the promises built by the previous two movies. After roughly 11 and a half hours of breathtaking cinema (and yes, we’re counting the Extended Editions), it should be near-impossible to pay off everything that’s come before – right? Jackson and his incredible team prove that isn’t the case, as Frodo’s journey takes him to his fiery destination as the rest of Middle-earth battles for its future.
Yes, the film feels like it ends multiple times – but that is a very minor gripe in what is truly the best example of what many decades’ worth of imagination can achieve, from Professor Tolkien’s scrawled inception of hobbits on an exam paper, to the final edit of Jackson’s movie. While it may be a shade less incredible than a certain other Middle-earth film, this movie will probably remain the director’s magnum opus. Oh, and it won a few Oscars, too.
2. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
If The Lord of the Rings trilogy can be classed as some of the best fantasy films ever, then 1994’s Heavenly Creatures should also be counted as one of the best dramas; the 1950-set New Zealand story of Juliet Hulme and Pauline Parker is as strange, bloody and intriguing as you’d expect, where two teenage girls soon start to share not just their lives with one another, but their individual fantasies too. What their obsessive relationship results in is one of the country’s most notorious, and shocking, crimes.
Kate Winslet shines in her first film role as Juliet, her innocence complemented by the quiet, inward Pauline, played by the superbly talented Melanie Lynskey. Together, they form a bond so tight – and portrayed so realistically – it turns into a relationship with a closeness we all would envy, if it were not for the psychological tumult that lies in wait. The girls soon draw into their own private fantasy lives – and the fantasy sequences, all equally inventive and dazzling, bring the more straightly-played moments of this incredible drama to transcendent heights. Juliet and Pauline construct an inner world brimming with startling beauty and profound horror, but Jackson is the real architect here: the make-believe labyrinth explored in Heavenly Creatures was the most incredible place the filmmaker had yet brought to the screen. That is, of course, until he visited Middle-earth.
1. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
Whether you saw it during its original theatrical run, or discovered it later on DVD, your introduction to Peter Jackson’s Middle-earth is an experience not easily forgotten. A world in which elves, wizards, dwarves, and curious little folk called hobbits lived in doesn’t sound like the coolest cinematic experience in the world – but the director and his army of creatives set out to make on-screen adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s sprawling world feel like a place that once existed, perhaps still buried under our very feet. But despite its overarching high fantasy, The Fellowship of the Ring’s greatest success is having a human heart; as such, at the centre of it all is Frodo, our young hobbit protagonist who finds himself in possession of a small, precious ring – a ring which could spell destruction for not just his beloved Shire, but all of Middle-earth. Now entrusted to travel to the evil land of Mordor to destroy the One Ring, he joins with wise wizard Gandalf, arrogant elf Legolas, stubborn dwarf Gimli, enigmatic warrior Aragorn, deceptive Gondorian Boromir, and Frodo’s fellow hobbit companions, Samwise, Merry, and Pippin; what ensues is essentially a road movie of epic proportions, set in a world that couldn’t be richer, nor the stakes higher.
What really separates Fellowship of the Ring from almost all fantasy before it, is its consistency in excellence. Think about it – what could be called the best part? The bravura opening sequence, which tells the ravishing history of Middle-earth in a matter of minutes? Ian McKellen in his greatest role as Gandalf, politely informing a Balrog that he ‘shall not pass?’ Boromir’s heroic fight to the end, despite being pierced by three arrows? We all have our favourites, but each minute of this movie has imprinted itself onto our filmgoing selves; it and the rest of the trilogy has passed through endless quotation and parody, only to break through to significantly influence the coming landscape of blockbusters.
Howard Shore’s beloved music – recently once again voted as the best film score ever made – plays like a complete world in itself, the history of Middle-earth etched in musical notation. The production design, which poured unbelievable detail into every aspect of costume, set, special effects and more, made the world look lived in. The vast swathe of characters, each one which could not have been cast any other way, are portrayed by actors in career-best roles who deliver the huge emotion to carry the movie. Look at it any way you want: The Fellowship of the Ring is craftsmanship on an unprecedented scale, each level bursting with ideas and character. The entire trilogy – especially this first instalment – is Jackson’s greatest achievement, and one that’s yet to be equalled by anyone else so far this century. These movies, and many of Jackson’s other works, will still be watched for a long time to come.