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Lord of the Rings Drinking Game
The **Lord of the Rings Drinking Game** is really three games, because Peter Jackson's trilogy shifts its habits...
You watchLord of the Rings
You needDrinks + friends
Triggers14 drink rules
Best with2-15 players
The Lord of the Rings Drinking Game is really three games, because Peter Jackson's trilogy shifts its habits film by film. The Fellowship of the Ring is the Ring in close-up, Gandalf's warnings and the company walking across another ridge. The Two Towers hands the screen to Gollum, Legolas and Gimli's kill count. The Return of the King is Sam carrying Frodo, Aragorn rallying an army and orcs by the thousand. The trigger list below covers all three, but the rule that fires most changes every time the map moves.
Theatrical cuts run about three hours each and The Return of the King is closer to three and a half; the extended editions add between half an hour and nearly an hour per film, taking the trilogy past eleven hours. That is why the marathon advice here is about which stretches to sip through. Nobody needs the landscape rule during the Rohan riding scenes in The Two Towers, and everyone needs it in the first hour of Fellowship. It is a different animal from a two-hour movie drinking game.
How to set it up
- Pick the film by which rules you want to fire: Fellowship for the Ring, the Shire and Gandalf; The Two Towers for Gollum and Helm's Deep; The Return of the King for Sam, Aragorn and the biggest orc count.
- Pour for three hours, and for the extended Return of the King pour for four - the Grey Havens ending arrives well after the Ring is destroyed, and the multiple endings are where most groups lose the plot.
- Give someone the Ring watch in Fellowship: the close-ups come in Bilbo's house, at the Council of Elrond, on Caradhras and in Lothlórien, and they are quick.
- Agree what a 'landscape shot' is before the company leaves Rivendell - the helicopter sweep across the mountains counts, a wide establishing shot of Edoras probably should not, or The Two Towers will sink you.
The rules: drink when…
The heart of the game: 14 triggers. Read them out before you press play, keep the ones your group likes, cut any that would fire every minute, and remember that a "drink" is one sip.
| When this happens… | …you drink |
|---|---|
| The One Ring is shown in close-up | Sip |
| Gollum says 'precious' or refers to himself as 'we' | Sip twice |
| Someone mentions Mordor or the Eye of Sauron | Sip |
| A character says 'the Shire' or longs for home | Sip |
| Gandalf gives a warning or a piece of wisdom | Sip |
| Sam worries about or looks after Frodo | Sip |
| Legolas does something impossibly acrobatic in battle | Sip |
| Gimli makes a joke or counts his kills | Sip |
| A sweeping landscape shot of the company walking | Sip twice |
| Aragorn rallies people or leads a charge | Sip |
| The Ring is put on and the world goes pale and silent | Sip |
| An orc, Uruk-hai, or Nazgul appears | Sip |
| Pippin or Merry causes trouble or asks about food | Sip |
| Sam carries or lifts an exhausted Frodo | Drink for 3 seconds |
How to play
Choose the film for the list
Run the full list on Fellowship: it has the Ring close-ups, the Shire, Gandalf's warnings, the walking montages and the first Nazgûl. For The Two Towers switch weight to Gollum, Legolas and Gimli. For The Return of the King the Ring and Shire rules quiet down until the end, so let Aragorn, Sam and the orc rule carry it.
Drink on the trilogy's structure
Fellowship opens in the Shire and stays gentle for forty minutes, then runs Bree, Weathertop, Rivendell, Moria and Amon Hen in a rising line. The Two Towers and The Return of the King cut between Frodo and Sam's road and the Aragorn story, so the Gollum rule and the Aragorn rule take turns rather than overlapping.
Handle the battles
The orc rule is one sip per appearance in Moria and on Weathertop, but at Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields count one sip per new wave, not per orc. Gimli's kill count and Legolas's stunts - shield-surfing at Helm's Deep, the oliphaunt in the third film - are the sips that make the battles fun to track.
Save the three-second drink
Sam carries Frodo up the slope of Mount Doom near the end of The Return of the King. Hold the long drink for that scene. If you are watching Fellowship or The Two Towers, give the three-second drink to Gandalf at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm or the charge of the Rohirrim at Helm's Deep instead.
Variations & house rules
Extended edition marathon
Watching all three extended cuts is over eleven hours. Keep only Gollum, Gimli, Legolas, orcs and the three-second Sam rule, and add one per film: second breakfast and any mention of Bilbo's party in Fellowship, Treebeard and the Ents in The Two Towers, the Mouth of Sauron and the Houses of Healing scenes that only exist in the extended Return of the King.
Free Peoples vs Mordor teams
Split into two sides. The Free Peoples drink whenever Mordor wins a beat - the Nazgûl at Weathertop, the Balrog, the wall breach at Helm's Deep, Théoden going down. Mordor drinks when the good guys score - Gandalf's return, the Ents flooding Isengard, the Rohirrim charge, the Ring going into the fire. Fellowship is Mordor's film; the other two swing back.
Fellowship pick
Each player claims one of the nine walkers at the Council of Elrond. You drink whenever your character does something heroic. The Frodo player drinks double while carrying the Ring, which is the whole trilogy, so choose Frodo only if you want a long night. Boromir's player is free after Amon Hen, and Gandalf's player takes a break between Moria and the White Rider.
Pro tips
Fellowship and The Two Towers each run just under three hours theatrical; The Return of the King runs about three hours twenty, and the extended cuts push each well past three and a half. Sip through the Rohan riding scenes and the Grey Havens.
The Fellowship of the Ring is the best single-film pick: the Ring, the Shire, Gandalf and the walking montages all fire, and the Moria stretch gives you a Balrog for the big moment without the endless siege footage of the later films.
Captions help with Gollum: the 'precious' and 'we' lines are hissed under the score, and the Sméagol-Gollum argument in The Two Towers is the single densest trigger scene in the trilogy.
Drink responsibly: A theatrical Lord of the Rings film runs three hours with Gollum, orc and Ring triggers stacking through the second half, and an extended trilogy day is over eleven hours of the same. A movie-length game adds up fast, so keep the pours small, water between drinks, and swap any trigger for a sip of water whenever you like. See our safety guide.
Frequently asked questions
Which Lord of the Rings movie is best for a drinking game?
The Fellowship of the Ring. It fires the Ring, the Shire, Gandalf and the landscape rules from the first hour and gives you Moria for the big moment. The Two Towers is the pick for a group that wants Gollum and Helm's Deep; The Return of the King has the most orcs and the emotional three-second drink, but also the longest wind-down.
How long does a Lord of the Rings drinking game last?
About three hours for a theatrical cut, closer to three and a half for The Return of the King, and up to four hours for an extended edition. The trigger density is front-loaded in Fellowship and back-loaded in The Return of the King, so the third film's opening hour is where you go easy.
Can you do the Lord of the Rings drinking game as an extended edition marathon?
Yes - people do it every year - but the extended trilogy is over eleven hours, so treat it as a full day with the marathon list above. Keep Gollum, Gimli, Legolas and the orc rule, drop the Ring close-ups and the landscape shots, and use the per-film additions. Hold the Sam rule for Mount Doom, which lands ten hours in.
What do you drink for when Gollum is on screen?
Two sips for every 'precious' and every time he calls himself 'we' or 'us'. Gollum first speaks in the opening of The Two Towers and is in nearly every Frodo-and-Sam scene from then on, so in that film and The Return of the King the rule can fire more than any other. If it runs away, count once per scene rather than per line.
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