RELATED: 7 Most Useful Classes Taught At Hogwarts, RankedĪt 161 minutes, Chamber of Secrets is the longest film of the franchise, and perhaps not so coincidentally it’s also the last film to try and fit (almost) everything from the book into the movie. As the franchise remains as popular now as it was a decade ago, and with the films now playing on their new basic cable home at Syfy and USA and streaming on HBO Max, now seems like as good a time as any to revisit the Harry Potter films and rank them worst to best-a somewhat difficult task given the high standard of quality throughout.Ī brief note before we begin, though: For the purposes of this feature, I’m evaluating each Harry Potter movie as a film first and foremost, not necessarily how it stacks up against its respective novel - what was left out, what was added, etc. It’s a magnificent accomplishment made all the more impressive by the fact that there’s not an outright bad movie in the bunch. The Harry Potter movies visualized what book readers had long fantasized about in their heads, and with the creative input and blessing of Rowling, they were able to evolve and grow just as the novels did, with four different directors bringing a variety of flavors to the series from film to film without sacrificing character, story, or continuity. But in another minor miracle, the Harry Potter film franchise was able to maintain a level of quality rarely found in film series that stretch on past one or two movies, let alone eight. As with anything that’s popular nowadays, Hollywood came calling rather quickly, and the first Harry Potter film was released a little over a year after the fourth book hit the shelves. But Harry Potter doesn’t begin and end with the books.

Harry Potter is ubiquitous in the form of elaborate theme parks, Freeform marathons ( RIP), video games, and of course, the highly re-readable novels.

It’s been 15 years since the last book was released, and 11 years since the last movie hit theaters, and yet the IP is as strong as it ever was. The Harry Potter franchise is a global phenomenon like few others.

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