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Even though not much has happened in the franchise recently, the Wizarding World of Harry Potter is a huge deal – we know all about the boy wizard, either from reading the books or from watching all the Harry Potter films in the order they came out, or both. And by now it’s simply too big a part of our current pop culture to disappear anytime soon, and even if we tried to forget it, author JK Rowling’s inflammatory and problematic comments would constantly bring it back up anyway. But that’s a moot point – like DC, Marvel and Star Wars, the Harry Potter franchise will probably be a part of our lives forever.
The Wizarding World imagines an alternate version of our own world, where there are many magical beings hiding in plain sight. As a generational saga, it explores a fascinating story primarily from the perspective of a child who, as he grows up, must come to terms with the fact that this is the beginning of the end of a very long drama that took place decades before he was born. Harry and his friends Ron and Hermione must deal with some extraordinary situations, while the adults in their lives repeatedly use them as pawns in this larger wizarding conflict – something the children become more and more aware of as they grow up. Each of the seven books tells the story of a school year at Hogwarts Academy of Magic, from Harry’s eleventh to his 18th year.
Film adaptations of the Harry Potter series are currently in a lull, with the planned five-part spin-off series Fantastic Beasts in limbo after three films – the only other plans for film fun in the wizarding world at the moment are the upcoming HBO series that will re-adapt the main book series. But that series is still in the early stages of development and could be several years away.
So for now, we’re left with the main Harry Potter and the Fantastic Beasts series films as the only film adaptations of this popular franchise. So let’s take a look at each of these films in the order they were released, and with all the information you need to find and stream each of them.
