Was this up for best picture?

Each LOTR movie was nominated for Best Picture and Return of the King won when it came out in 2003.

Definitely my favourite of the 3.

There were very few Oscar noms for the first two films, the awards voters waited until the 3rd film was released before "... backing up the awards truck" as someone put it.

It was and lost to 'A Beautiful Mind' I believe. Maybe I was immature at age 20/21 and my bias has consumed me all the way to age 40 but I still refuse to watch the movie and haven't watched an Oscar show since Return of the King. The Two Towers lost to Chicago and it just made me realize how political the entertainment industry was, lol. All the Oscars for Return of the King felt unearned because of the previous slights. They absolutely WERE earned but this idea that they waited to award all 3 movies at the same time was just dumb to me and I didn't feel a sense of 'yea, they deserve this!!!!' it felt more like 'About damn time'. anyway, that's my history of reliving those Oscar ceremonies, lol