The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring/Awards

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring was released in theatres worldwide on 19 December 2001. Faced with a production budget of $93 million, the first film earned a worldwide gross of $871,530,324. As in the rest of the series, The Fellowship of the Ring had a large ensemble cast, introducing Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Orlando Bloom, Liv Tyler, John Rhys-Davies, Sean Bean, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Hugo Weaving, Ian Holm, and Andy Serkis. The first film's plot follows Frodo Baggins (Wood) and the rest of the Fellowship of the Ring as they begin their journey to destroy the One Ring and defeat the Dark Lord Sauron once and for all.

According to film site aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 91 percent of critics were favorable about The Fellowship of the Ring. Entertainment Weekly columnist Lisa Schwarzbaum called the film "thrilling – a great picture, a triumphant picture, a joyfully conceived work of cinema that (based on this first installment, with two more ready for release in the next two years) would appear to embrace Tolkien's classic with love and delight, and rewards both adepts and novices with the highest compliment of all: an intelligence and artistry as a movie independent of blind fidelity to the page." Nev Pierce of BBC added, "Funny, scary and, totally involving, Peter Jackson's assured adaptation of J. R. R Tolkien's The Lord of The Rings turns the book's least screen-worthy volume into a gripping and powerful adventure movie."

The Fellowship of the Ring received thirteen Academy Award nominations, winning in four categories. It also earned thirteen nominations at the 55th British Academy Film Awards, leading to wins in the categories for Makeup, Best Picture, Best Direction and Best Special Visual Effects. Other notable ceremonies where it received much recognition included the American Film Institute Awards, the Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards, the Empire Awards, the Golden Globes, the MTV Movie Awards, the Satellite Awards, and Saturn Awards. Various critics groups, such as those in Chicago and Phoenix also awarded the film. In total, The Fellowship of the Ring received 98 awards out of 152 nominations.

Academy Awards

 * Academy Award for Best Makeup and Hairstyling (Peter Owen and Richard Taylor)
 * Academy Award for Best Cinematography (Andrew Lesnie)
 * Academy Award for Best Original Score (Howard Shore)
 * Academy Award for Best Visual Effects (Jim Rygiel, Randall William Cook, Richard Taylor and Mark Stetson)

American Film Institute Awards

 * Movie of the Year (Peter Jackson, Barrie Osborne, Tim Sanders, and Fran Walsh
 * Digital Effects Artist of the Year (Jim Rygiel)
 * Production Designer of the Year (Grant Major)