How to watch every The Lord of the Rings movie in Australia

One original trilogy to rule them all. One prequel series to frustrate them. One standalone prequel to cash-grab some more. And good luck getting a streaming service to collate them all. No, I'm not talking about Star Wars. This page is dedicated to demystifying the seemingly many places to find The Lord of the Rings saga, including the original trilogy, The Hobbit movies and even The War of the Rohirrim one-off.

Scroll on to find where to watch them – spoilers, it's not just Stan – and whether it's even possible to stream the almighty extended editions.

Listen, if you're a purist, there are only technically three movies that fall under The Lord of the Rings umbrella. There's The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Slightly complicating things is the reality that there are theatrical editions and the infinitely better and lauded extended editions (sorry, Peter Jackson). The fact is, there are a lot of ways to watch The Lord of the Rings, but let's start with Stan because it at least has the two Middle-earth trilogies.

Stan Basic costs $12 a month for a single SD stream or it's $17 per month for Stan Standard, which has three simultaneous HD streams. Alternatively, you can pay $22 a month for four simultaneous streams in up to 4K quality. Whichever price you pay, you'll get The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Full disclosure: those are the theatrical editions for The Lord of the Rings trilogy, but the extended versions for The Hobbit trilogy.

In fairness, tracking down the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy on any streaming service in Australia seems fruitless. That said, if you're not a Stan fan, there are other ways to watch The Lord of the Rings flicks. Netflix has The Lord of the Rings trilogy. As does Prime Video, where you can also watch The Rings of Power show.

Netflix Standard costs $7.99 per month for two simultaneous ad-supported 1080p streams or it's a $18.99 monthly fee for the same deal, minus ads. Alternatively, pay $25.99 per month for four simultaneous streams in up to 4K quality. Prime Video costs either $9.99 per month or $79 per year with ads, but you can pay $2.99 per month to ditch the ads.

Not wanting to be left out, 4K theatrical versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy are also on HBO Max. The bonus there is that HBO Max is the only way to watch The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim. HBO Max's pricing and inclusions is a bit more complicated than other streaming services, but it's outlined in the table below.

The original Lord of the Rings movies are considered to be one of the greatest trilogies ever put on the silver screen. It follows the plight of starry-eyed Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) and the ultimate ring-man Samwise Gamgee (Sean Astin) as they're tasked by the kind-of-a-jerk wizard Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) to courier an unholy ring to its birthplace, which also happens to be the only place to destroy it.

Along the way, they'll team up with a legendary supporting cast of heroes in Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), Boromir (Sean Bean) and Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), plus a couple of liability tagalongs in Pippin (Billy Boyd) and Merry (Dominic Monaghan). There's plenty of laughs, love and epic action set pieces. And that's just the first movie. Arguably, they get better with each entry, building towards a conclusion that won 11 Oscars.

Then there's The Hobbit trilogy prequels, which follow the tale of Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) and his original adventure that put him in possession of the MacGuffin that drives The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Along the way, he befriends a company of dwarves with names ripped out of a Dr Seuss book. Much adventure, padding and soulless CGI ensues in a trilogy that goes the opposite way of the original trilogy in terms of quality.

Finally, there's also The War of the Rohirrim, a standalone animated movie that acts as an even deeper prequel than The Hobbit movies. The War of the Rohirrim follows the plight of the Rohirrim people as they square off against a growing threat that looms larger in their lands. It's arguably better than the worst parts of The Hobbit movies, but it's also very forgettable.

If you want to watch the extended versions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, you'll have to dust off a DVD, Blu-ray or UHD copy. Here's a breakdown of the running time for the respective theatrical and extended versions of each Middle-earth movie if you want to see how much time you have to commit.

Stan is home to a growing library of quality movie and TV content. For popular Stan movies, check out Last Seen Alive, Dumb Money and The Karate Kid. If you're more a fan of bingeing Stan TV shows, try Black Sails, 3rd Rock from the Sun, or Poker Face.