Top ten: (in this order)
1. Scenery (New Zealand - best country in a supporting role
)
2. Costumes and set props, and especially the attention to detail given to everything
3. Score
4. Actors - Everybody fit their part perfectly... or almost perfectly (I'll give no names though
)
5. Directing - I used to ignore the genius of directing, until I saw such magnificently done scenes like 'Faramir's ride to Osgiliath' or the Ride of the Rohirrim.
6. Sean Bean (and no, he shouldn't be at number 4 with the rest because he deserves a category of his own
)
7. Cool battle scenes: like Aragorn fighting Lurtz or Sam fighting Shelob
8. Some of my favourite scenes in the book were done just right: Ride of the Rohirrim, Frodo at Mt Doom (*huge sigh of relief*)
9. Some cool special effects
10. *thinking really hard*...Well, they were more or less loosely based on one of my favourite books...
All in all, I agree with all of you who said that, despite minor flaws, the movie expressed the spirit of the book quite well.