Middle-earth in film also became the most-nominated in the Academy's history, surpassing the "Godfather" series' 28 (with the release of "The Hobbit", the series currently has 36 nominations total). Its 11 Oscars at the 2004 Academy Awards tied it for most awards won for one film with "Titanic" six years earlier and the 1959 version of "Ben-Hur." It also broke the previous "sweep" record, beating "Gigi" and "The Last Emperor" (which each took 9 out of 9). "The Return of the King" also made movie history as the highest-grossing film opening on a Wednesday and was the second film after "Titanic" to earn
Ben-Hur (2016 film) wrote, "Overseen by a director not known for his human touch and lacking a name star, except for Mr. Freeman, "Ben-Hur" feels like a film made on the cheap, although it looks costly." Richard Roeper gave the film two stars out of four, writing: ""Ben-Hur" struggles to find an identity and never really gets there. The well-intentioned efforts to achieve moving, faith-based awakenings are undercut by the casually violent, PG-13 action sequences." "The Hollywood Reporter"s Todd McCarthy described the film's chariot race scene as being "heavily digitized and over-edited", and called it the worst scene of the film he described