The Harry Potter series is a big one that almost everyone has heard about, even if you’ve never read the books or seen the movies. It is a tale of magic and growing up and hits many people hard. The books were first released in 1997, and the first movie was released in 2001. It has continued on steadily since then, with the last Fantastic Beasts movie released in 2022.

For those that missed out on watching it or reading it when it first came out, you want to catch up and get in on the hype. But it isn’t easy when there are 11 movies to check out.

Where do you begin? Which ones do you watch first? And do you have to watch them in order? We have all of those answers and more below.

MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY

     Bloomsbury Publishing

Do You Have to Watch All the Harry Potter Movies in Order?

Theoretically, nothing is stopping you from watching all the movies out of order. However, if you want to follow the majority of the story, and understand the main subplot, you will need to watch them in order.

The movies themselves are sequential, so watching them in order lets you understand what the story is building upon and follow along with the numerous subplots building with every movie.

When you watch it out of order, you end up with a lot of spoilers, and a lot of confusion about the importance of certain characters.

Technically, there are two series in the Harry Potter universe. You have the actual Harry Potter series, which is based on the seven books written by JK Rowling. There were eight movies made from the books because the last book was broken into two movies to cover it all.

Then the world-building continued with the Fantastic Beasts series. This was created later but is considered a prequel and features one of the older characters from the Harry Potter movies in his younger years.

Do You Have to Watch the Harry Potter Series Before Watching Fantastic Beasts?

     Warner Bros

Though they are set in the same world, Fantastic Beasts and Harry Potter are distinctly different stories. They do connect at some point but watching them one before the other doesn’t really spoil anything or make it confusing to watch.

As long as you watch the movies in their respective series in order, you should have no problem. What this means is that if you decide to watch all the Fantastic Beasts, you need to watch all of them in order. But if you decide to watch all the Harry Potter movies, you need to watch all of those in their correct order, but whether you choose to watch Fantastic Beasts or Harry Potter first is up to you.

What Is the Correct Order to Watch the Harry Potter Movies in?

Though you need to watch the Harry Potter movies in order to be able to understand everything, that doesn’t mean you only have one order to watch them in.

Like Star Wars, you can actually watch Harry Potter in one of two ways while still getting the full understanding of the whole series. This is because some of the movies are prequels, namely the Fantastic Beast set, and the main story of the Harry Potter Universe.

So you can watch the 11 movies either in chronological order, or the order of release.

Chronologically

If you wanted to watch the movies to follow the actual timeline, you would start with the Fantastic Beasts series. The first movie is set in 1927, which is 64 years before the first Harry Potter movie.

So to watch them chronologically, you would follow this order.

  • Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part II

In Order of Release

The Fantastic Beasts series is a much newer part of the Harry Potter world. The original seven books only covered the story of Harry Potter himself, and then were translated into eight movies starting in 2001. The first Fantastic Beasts movie came out in 2016, five years after the last Harry Potter movie.

This means that technically, although Fantastic Beasts was set beforehand, it was created much later. So if you want to watch them in order of release, you should go in this order:

  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Order of The Phoenix Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows: Part II Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore