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Fictional battle in The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

In J. R. R. Tolkien's epic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings, the Battle of the Morannon or the Battle of the Black Gate, is the final confrontation in the War of the Ring. Gondor and its allies send a small army ostensibly to challenge Sauron at the entrance to his land of Mordor; he supposes that they have with them the One Ring and mean to use it to defeat him. In fact, the Ring is being carried by the hobbits Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee into Mordor to destroy it in Mount Doom, and the army is moving to distract Sauron from them. Before the battle, a nameless leader, the "Mouth of Sauron", taunts the leaders of the army with the personal effects of Frodo and Sam. Battle is joined, but just as it seems the army of Gondor will be overwhelmed, the Ring is destroyed, and the forces of Sauron lose heart. Mount Doom erupts, and Sauron's tower, Barad dûr, collapses, along with the Black Gate. The army of Gondor returns home victorious, the War of the Ring won.

This was the final battle against Sauron in the War of the Ring, fought at the Morannon, the Black Gate of Mordor. The Army of the West, led by Aragorn, marched on the gate to distract Sauron's attention from the hobbits Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee, who were dangerously carrying the One Ring into Mordor. It was hoped that Sauron would think Aragorn had the Ring and was now trying to use it to overthrow Mordor. As the journey progressed, Aragorn was credited openly as "the King Elessar" by their heralds to challenge Sauron. Aragorn had around 7,000 soldiers of Gondor and Rohan, some 6,000 foot and 1,000 horse. The army included King Éomer of Rohan; Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth; Elladan & Elrohir, the twin sons of Elrond; Beregond, a Guard of the Citadel of Minas Tirith; and five of the eight surviving members of the Fellowship of the Ring (Aragorn, Gandalf, Legolas, Gimli and Pippin).

The battle took place on 25 March. Before the battle began, Sauron sent the Black Númenórean called the Mouth of Sauron to speak with the Captains of the West. He tried to trick Gandalf into believing Sauron held Frodo captive, displaying as evidence Sam's sword, an Elven cloak, and Frodo's mithril shirt. The Mouth threatened that Frodo would be tortured if the West did not agree to Sauron's terms of surrender. Gandalf took the items from the Mouth of Sauron, and dismissed him. Barad dûr, the Black Gate and the Towers of the Teeth collapsed as their foundations were built with the power of the Ring. The Orcs and other creatures of Sauron were left directionless with his demise, and were easily defeated by the Army of the West. Some killed themselves, while others fled. The proud Easterlings and Haradrim fought on bravely, though eventually many surrendered, to be sent home in peace by Aragorn as he established the renewed and united Kingdoms of Gondor and Arnor.

The Tolkien critic Paul H. Kocher states that while commentators have noted the "self sacrificial courage" of the hobbits Frodo and Sam crossing Mordor to destroy the One Ring, far fewer had spoken of the "equal if less solitary unselfish daring" of the 7,000 men who offered battle at the Morannon. Kocher notes that if Frodo and Sam had completed their mission an hour later, the whole army would have been lost, given the "desperate" odds; the hobbits saved the army, but just as much, the army "saved the hobbits and so the West".

Commentators have drawn parallels between the Mouth of Sauron and notable figures during World War II: Gandalf's refusal to negotiate with a mere mouthpiece of Sauron and turning down his master's harsh terms of occupation was described as an echo of Winston Churchill by Daniel Timmons, while Shippey compared the Mouth of Sauron's offer of peace in exchange for the Army of the West's surrender in slavery to Vichy France under Nazi German occupation.

Gregory Bassham and Eric Bronson's The Hobbit and Philosophy notes that the hobbit Pippin, who starts out on the quest playful and childish, is radically altered by his experiences, as shown by his killing of a troll in the Battle of the Morannon.

[[File:Battle of the Morannon. jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|Peter Jackson's film version of the battle in his 2003 The Return of the King, showing the large scale of the scene with many extras and massive use of CGI. Peter Jackson's film adaptation of The Return of the King is interspersed with scenes of Frodo and Sam at Mount Doom, and focuses mainly on the characters of Gandalf, Aragorn, and the rest of the Fellowship. Aragorn fights a troll, a departure from the book; Large numbers of extras were used for the battle, and some hundreds of soldiers from New Zealand's army to give an impression of the battle's enormous scale. Jackson had at one stage intended Aragorn to fight the Dark Lord Sauron in person, but "wisely" reduced this to combat with a troll. The Mouth of Sauron appears in the extended edition of The Return of the King, where he is played by Bruce Spence, though his scenes are cut in the theatrical release. This version of the character has a diseased and disfigured appearance: a helmet covers Spence's entire face except the mouth, which is digitally increased to disproportionate size and disfigured by blackened, cracked lips and rotting teeth. According to director's commentary bundled with the film's extended edition DVD release, the idea behind this visual interpretation is that the repetition of Sauron's messages has such an evil effect that it has warped the character's body.