Books

Already been mentioned but the The Wizard of Earthsea (Earthsea Cycle) by Ursula K. Le Guin is the only other fantasy that feels "similar" to the Lord of the Rings to me (admittedly I haven't read a ton of fantasy, but I've read a decent amount). I'm reading through the series for the first time, on book three right now, and it's just great. Feel like it does a nice job of defying my expectations of a "fantasy story" and Le Guin's writing is beautiful.

Also these books straddle the line between fantasy and sci-fi, but the Broken Earth Series by N. K. Jemisin are amazing and among my favorite books. Actually gave the series a reread after my most recent reread of LotR earlier this year, so I can vouch they are an excellent follow up! These ones have less of an obvious fantasy parallel to LotR but they're too good for me to not mention!

The first 3 books of A Song of Ice & Fire.

By the time he gets to book 4/5 it's all starting to get a little out of hand for poor George.

Have you tried wheel of time?

The Kingkiller Chronicle trilogy by Patrick Rothfuss. It is not so much LotR becauseitt focuses on one main character. But it has a pretty clever and thoroughly thought out magic system and I for my part enjoyed the story. Link to openlibrary

The Dragon Lance series?

A neglected series is Riverworld by Philip Jose Farmer. There are five volumes that are a great read.

All humanity is resurrected after death on the banks of a strange river. Each book deals with a real historical figure and the struggle to understand the mysteries of Riverworld. Each volume more or less follows characters from history (Richard Burton, Mark Twain, Cyrano de Bergerac and others) who embark on a journey to travel to the end of the River in order to solve the mystery of their resurrection. It's quite pulpy but very enjoyable.

I’ve haven’t finished the series yet, but Legends of the First Empire series by Michael J Sullivan has given me really strong lord of the rings vibes.

The Shannara series by Terry Brooks has a reputation as being an homage to LotR, and they are quite enjoyable.

If you want to try and branch out and give Urban Fantasy (magic, but more modern society) a try there’s a reason that the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher are super popular. The book Dead Beat was written as a mid-series introduction for new readers to the series because Sci-Fi had just come out with a TV series and the 1st few books are weaker because the author was super new to published writing.

Magician: Apprentice & Magician: Master by Feist are great

Long before there was Harry Potter, Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guinn was discovering he had magical talents and going to wizard school. It’s a beloved classic for a reason.

Most people can agree that LOTR is about "good vs evil" with high attention to details, which can be found in many other fantasy books.

One thing that make me obsessed with LOTR that's way less common is Tolkien's approach with how to do good.

In LOTR, it's not enough to claim "the end justifies the means", where Gandalf could use the ring to destroy Sauron and be a "good" leader. It's in the little things that goodness wins. There's a nice quote from Sam in one of the last chapters about it.

In my opinion, Tolkien's witness of WWI made him aware that the "good" side would commit as much atrocities as the "bad" side in a war. That was something he learned from it, and tries to push in his stories.

In that sense, i liked Wheel of Time. It starts in a Game of Thrones style, where the good guys work against each other because "the end justifies the means" (encouraged by infiltrated bad guys). To win, the good guys have to learn Tolkien's lesson, and make sure they don't cause harm when trying to achieve their goals. Also, it's very detailed and deep.

It's a little different in style, but my all-time favorite series is the Old Kingdom series by Garth Nix. (Lord of the Rings is a close second). It's a series with extremely well-written female protagonists with a very interesting and detailed magic system, and the protagonists are a family lineage of anti-necromancers.

I love these two series enough that I have a tattoo of a quote from the Old Kingdom series written in Quenya. (I did a phonetic translation due to the lack of appropriate vocabulary in the conlang, but the calligraphy is correct.)

The Ea-Cycle series by David Zindell.

Stormlight Archive (Sanderson). Wheel of Time (Jordan). Broken Earth trilogy (Jemisin). Elric of Melniboné (Moorcock). Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (Williams).

To name a few.