After a few years of no Wizarding World content, the prequel franchise began to add to the Harry Potter movie order. It all began with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 2001 and continued through Deathly Hallows Part 2 in 2011. It's timeless, smart, visually brilliant and a great movie to watch with children to this day.Putting the Harry Potter movies in order and Fantastic Beasts movies in order based on the franchise's release dates is the easiest strategy. It's far more of a kids movie than what would come later for Harry Potter, but that's entirely appropriate given the source material. Sorcerer's Stone (or Philosopher's Stone outside of the US) is one of his best. The man directed Home Alone and Mrs Doubtfire, for god's sake, he knew what he was doing! With fantastic movies down the line, Prisoner of Azkaban, being the most obvious example, it's easy to forget Harry Potter's sequels were following a visual and stylistic template designed, in part, by the steady hand of Chris Columbus. Outside of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, is there a more iconic and memorable Williams theme? I'd argue no. Perhaps most importantly, we wouldn't have had the sublime John Williams score. We wouldn't have the perfectly pitched Harry Potter aesthetic. There are eight Harry Potter movies in chronological order, the events of which follow the exact sequence as the release dates of the films. Rowling gave to fans of fantastical stories. We wouldn't have had the tremendous, perfect casting of Daniel Radcliffe, Emily Watson and Rupert Grint without this movie. The cast and crew of the new Harry Potter film will wear white ribbons on their wrists at the movies world premiere in Leicester Square tonight in tribute to a murdered colleague. The wizarding world of Harry Potter is a phenomenal gift that J.K. Wherever the series goes next, you can find some fantastic stuff here. Katherine Waterston and Ezra Miller provide intriguingly off-kilter support, and Colin Farrell is such a smolderingly seductive baddie it's a real shame Depp took over.

It's also really well-cast: Eddie Redmayne is great as Newt Scamander, a big screen hero whose character is defined by gentleness, curiosity and compassion instead of violence and aggression. It gives fans and casual viewers a chance to enjoy the fantasy without being stuck in twee boarding school world, and the expanded look at Rowling's wizarding world comes with delightfully colorful creatures and a dandy retro fantasy vibe. And thanks to off-screen controversy (Rowling's outspoken views on Twitter, Johnny Depp's marital difficulties) the Fantastic Beasts series has sputtered like a wonky wand.īut we will say this: the first film is decent.

When Warner Bros decided to turn Rowling's slim pamphlet into a sprawling multi-movie franchise, it could be seen as a return to the magic or cynical moneymaking sorcery.

Names of harry potter films in order