How long does it take to watch all six Middle-earth films?

The three Lord of the Rings films and the three Hobbit films together run 17 hours 12 minutes theatrically. The Hobbit trilogy takes 474 minutes to adapt a 95,000-word children's book, while the Lord of the Rings trilogy takes 558 minutes for 455,000 words — roughly five times the screen time per word of source. That ratio is the clearest single argument in the long dispute about whether The Hobbit should have been three films. In extended form the six films come to about 21 hours.

The numbers

Total

17 hours 12 minutes

In hours

17.2 hours

Non-stop

0.7 days without sleeping

Covers

6 films, theatrical cuts

At a realistic pace

a film a night

That works out as

about 6 days

What this assumes

Theatrical cuts of all six films: 558 minutes for the Lord of the Rings trilogy and 474 for The Hobbit.

The extended edition of The Battle of the Five Armies is quoted at both 157 and 164 minutes, so the six-film extended total is uncertain by several minutes.

Other films