Peter Jackson brought to life J R R Tolkien's Middle Earth in the outstanding Lord of the Rings trilogy. The movies made characters like Frodo and Aragorn household names and spawned a whole new generation of fans, with the legend of one ring binding them all. He's back with the two-part prequel to the films, and the first part 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' , releases this Friday. We look at 10 other collections that've enthralled us:
Rohit Shetty's gravity defying capers might not be everyone's cup of tea, but the Golmaal series certainly had lots of us in splits, as is proved by the crores the movies raked in. 'Golmaal: Fun Unlimited', 'Golmaal Returns' and 'Golmaal 3' were anchored by the comedic talents of Ajay Devgn, Arshad Warsi and Tusshar Kapoor and there's even a fourth in the offing, though Rohit Shetty has said he will take a good, long break before he returns to the series again
Satyajit Ray's highly celebrated Apu Trilogy consisted of three Bengali movies - 'Pather Panchali', 'Aparajito' and 'Apur Sansar' - that chronicled the coming-of-age experiences of the title character, Apu. The movies have gone on to win international acclaim, inspire directors like Martin Scorsese and Danny Boyle, and laid the foundations for parallel cinema in India
The last two Batman movies, before Christopher Nolan took over the reins, were box office disasters. However, all that changed when Bruce Wayne came back darker and more deadly than ever. 'Batman Begins', 'The Dark Knight' and 'The Dark Knight Rises' forever changed the way we look at superhero movies and gave us characters and performances (especially Heath Ledger as the Joker) that will live in our hearts and memories for all time
Talking toys have been around as long as Enid Blyton books have, but Pixar breathed new life and attitude into Andy Davis' playmates. Woody, the cowboy and Buzz Lightyear, the space ranger became the unlikeliest of friends and their tales over three movies made for a thrilling, sweet and often, poignant experience
Francis Ford Coppola forever changed the way we look at mafia lords and their families with the Godfather trilogy that was based on Mario Puzo's novels. The movies have been hailed by critics across the world as some of the finest ever made and the Corleone family showed that there could be honour among even the most bloodthirsty thieves
The franchise will see its fourth installment release this August, but it's going to be a tough job for Jeremy Renner to replace Matt Damon as Jason Bourne. What started off in 'The Bourne Identity' as a search of a CIA agent for answers to his past, turned into a thrilling chase spread over 'The Bourne Supremacy' and 'The Bourne Ultimatum'
We might have not cared much for the Marc Webb reboot, but the Sam Raimi series certainly holds a special place in our hearts for bringing the web slinger to life in celluloid. Tobey Maguire as the shy Peter Parker put the aww in awkward and his transition to zero to hero was truly inspiring
The extraordinary mutants deserved no less than a trilogy to chronicle their awesomeness. Some X-men characters were woefully left out (for example Gambit, who had a terrible debut in X-Men Origins: Wolverine), the movies served as a brilliant introduction to Professor Xavier's team of heroes
The Matrix trilogy single-handedly resurrected Keanu Reeves' career, set a new standard for action sequences (that would be aped even in Bollywood movies like 'Main Hoon Na') and blew our minds. While the last movie, 'The Matrix Revolutions', didn't quite live up to the first ('The Matrix') or the second ('The Matrix Reloaded'), it still provided enough fodder to spawn an animated series spin off, video games and even a religion called Matrixism or The Path of the One
