The Sacred Fire
Diverse, progress, change
Agreed, LOTR is pretty special. The first and best of it's kind.
But yeah as Elessea said, there's diff types of fantasy films. And it should be said that the outlines of a 'fantasy film' aren't that distinct. I mean we all know that fantasy films usually have magic, supernatural themes, people, creatures, beings, worlds, etc. But it's the etc that makes it open to new ideas.
Some films have elements of fantasy in them but aren't described as a fantasy film.
Sometimes there's a mix of fantasy and other genres. Star Wars is a mix of fantasy of science fiction.
A lot of the Walt Disney animated films are described as 'fairy tale' rather than fantasy, when clearly there's many core details of a fantasy film in there. Just look at Beauty and the Beast, Bambi and Snow White. Although I have the feeling they're put in that genre on the behalf of children.
Also, those Marvel superhero films (The Fantastic Four, Spiderman, X-men, etc) include fantasy subject matter and themes but aren't always described as fantasy.
And of course there's, Historical Fantasy, which lends itself more to novels (I'm getting a bit side-tracked here, lost in all this fantasy). Authors like Guy Gavriel Kay, Judith Tarr, Sara Douglass and many more...
Next up is Romantic Fantasy, which, like the last, is more bent towards novels.
Pirates of the Caribbean is a good example of a film that has a combination of both historical and romantic fantasy.
Then there's Contemporary Fantasy which is just pretty much Harry Potter along with a quite a few novels. Not my cupa tea but whatever.
The problem (or interest, depending on your opinion) is that there's so many categories and subgenres of fantasy film these days. LOTR is obviously High Fantasy. And along with Lewis, Tolkien established this genre. Along with the Sword and Sorcery genre (think Conan, Elric and Dungeons & Dragons), the two pretty much define the class of fantasy film and these I like best.