The Harry Potter film series is one of the most successful franchises in Hollywood history, although the running times are much longer than usual for young adult movies. The Harry Potter series has brought in over $9.5 billion in its worldwide box office (via The Numbers), with the original franchise and the Fantastic Beasts movies combined. While the flagship series has ended, the Wizarding World lives on, both in the world of movies and video games, with Hogwarts Legacy and the Harry Potter TV show reboot.
However, the future of the franchise on the big screen remains in question. Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore was the lowest-grossing movie in the franchise by almost $250 million. That has caused Warner Bros. to pump the brakes on that specific spinoff franchise for now. But Warner Bros. also said that the Harry Potter franchise remains valuable to the studio, and fans should expect to see more of the property in one way or another, with the Harry Potter reboot TV show in the works at HBO.
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Movie |
Runtime |
|---|---|
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Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) |
152 Minutes |
|
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (2002) |
161 Minutes |
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Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004) |
144 Minutes |
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Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005) |
157 Minutes |
|
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (2007) |
138 Minutes |
|
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009) |
153 Minutes |
|
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) |
146 Minutes |
|
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) |
130 Minutes |
|
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (2016) |
132 Minutes |
|
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald (2018) |
134 Minutes |
|
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore (2022) |
143 Minutes |
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer’s Stone (2001)
152 Minutes
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The one that started it all established the series’ structure with this Harry Potter movie length of two-and-a-half hours. In the film, Harry Potter learns his parents were great wizards, and receives an invitation to study at Hogwarts, a prestigious wizarding school. Daniel Radcliffe took on the role of Harry Potter at the young age of 12, along with fellow child actors Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. The cast was rounded out by some of Britain’s top acting talent, and the film went on to an impressive $1 billion at the box office for director Chris Columbus.
Columbus’ first two movies are the most faithful adaptations of the books.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is the shortest book in J.K. Rowling’s series but boasts one of the longer Harry Potter film lengths. Despite this, numerous beloved characters like Peeves were still cut from the final product. That said, Columbus’ first two movies are the most faithful adaptations of the books, leaving out only what could be considered extraneous (Peeves aside) and following Rowling’s narrative beats almost to a T. The runtime reflects this fact as, at times, Sorcerer’s Stone can run at a glacial pace compared to the relatively quick read that is the book.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone PG Where to Watch
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Director Chris Columbus Release Date November 16, 2001 Cast Daniel Radcliffe , Rupert Grint , Emma Watson , John Cleese , Robbie Coltrane , Warwick Davis , Richard Griffiths , Ian Hart , John Hurt , Alan Rickman , Fiona Shaw , Maggie Smith Runtime 152 Minutes
Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets (2002)
161 Minutes
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Released one year after Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Chris Columbus finished up his two-film run with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and the Harry Potter movie runtimes increased. Columbus had previously worked well with children as a director on films like Home Alone and a writer on The Goonies, so he was perfect to launch the franchise. This second movie showed what dangers Harry faced in the future as the past of Lord Voldemort, the franchise’s main antagonist, is delved into.
The film made $882 million and was the second highest-grossing film of 2002.
Much like Sorcerer’s Stone, Chamber of Secrets and its ending stick relatively close to the source material. Of what was cut were various encounters with secondary antagonist Gilderoy Lockhart that only further served to enforce his buffoonery and much of Percy Weasley’s role in the narrative. Of all the Harry Potter film lengths, Chamber of Secrets is the longest and is sometimes regarded as the worst Harry Potter movie. Chamber of Secrets exacerbates Sorcerer’s Stone‘s pacing issues, but at least Harry is seen actually performing magic in this film, and popular characters like Lucius Malfoy and Dobby are introduced.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets pg-13 Where to Watch
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Director Chris Columbus Release Date November 15, 2002 Writers J.K. Rowling , Steve Kloves Cast Emma Watson , Rupert Grint , Kenneth Branagh , John Cleese , Robbie Coltrane , Warwick Davis , Richard Griffiths , Richard Harris , Jason Isaacs , Daniel Radcliffe , Alan Rickman , Maggie Smith Runtime 161 Minutes
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban (2004)
144 Minutes
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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban has a complex ending and while Columbus made his Harry Potter movies mostly about children discovering magic, Academy Award-winning director Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity) took the helm for this one and made one of the most adult films in the series — with one of the shorter Harry Potter movie runtimes. Cuarón cut back the runtime, although it was still over two hours. Sirius Black, a man once held at the Azkaban prison, was introduced as Harry’s godfather, and the film changed the franchise’s tone drastically.
Prisoner of Azkaban is widely regarded as the best Harry Potter movie in the series, even though Voldemort isn’t in it at all. The film moves at breakneck speed without sacrificing important exposition and its noticeable tonal shift was necessary to usher in Goblet of Fire, as the Harry Potter stories themselves grew darker with each subsequent book. However, with the cut runtime came cut characters — and no Quidditch — and side characters like Neville, Dean, or Seamus had minimal screen time.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban pg-13 Where to Watch
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Director Alfonso Cuarón Release Date May 31, 2004 Cast Gary Oldman , David Thewlis , Daniel Radcliffe , Emma Watson , Rupert Grint , Robbie Coltrane , Timothy Spall , Maggie Smith , Michael Gambon , Richard Griffiths , Fiona Shaw , Alan Rickman Runtime 144 Minutes
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire (2005)
157 Minutes
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Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire really showed that character deaths could be serious in the series, but with one of the middling Harry Potter movie runtimes, audiences experienced major cuts for the first time. In this film, Harry Potter took part in a Triwizard Tournament that saw him battle in a series of tests to determine which school had the best young wizard. However, that was just to move the plot along as the true importance of this movie, directed by Mike Newell, was to bring Lord Voldemort back from the dead.
Despite having a runtime of almost 2 hours and 40 minutes, Goblet of Fire was the first Harry Potter film that saw huge cuts to the narrative to reach its conclusion while still providing enough exposition. For starters, fans who have only watched the Harry Potter movies have never heard of Ludo Bagman, Hermione’s House Elf rights campaign, the importance of Winky the House Elf, or how Barty Crouch Jr. managed to escape Azkaban and eventually orchestrate his evil plan. Had the Goblet of Fire runtime been expanded, certain things would’ve made more sense going forward.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire PG-13 Where to Watch
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Director Mike Newell Release Date November 18, 2005 Cast Daniel Radcliffe , Emma Watson , Rupert Grint , Tom Felton , Robbie Coltrane , Ralph Fiennes , Michael Gambon , Brendan Gleeson , Gary Oldman , Timothy Spall , Alan Rickman , Maggie Smith Runtime 157 Minutes
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix (2007)
138 Minutes
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While Order of the Phoenix is the longest Harry Potter book, it is the shortest in terms of Harry Potter movie runtimes. David Yates directed this film and remained with the franchise to the end. This movie saw the rise of the powerful Order of the Phoenix to battle the Death Eaters, and Harry learned who his real allies were. This was the step in Harry’s journey where he found himself betrayed, as the Ministry of Magic refused to believe Voldemort was back and left the Order to fight alone.
Thanks to Goblet of Fire, fans of the novels were prepared for how much cutting Order of the Phoenix would undergo. Despite this, it seems almost criminal that the longest book in the series got the shortest runtime. Much of Harry’s inner turmoil and scenes that displayed his increasingly troubling connection to Voldemort didn’t appear, with the attack on Mr. Weasley being one of the only major instances included. Because of its short runtime, Harry’s angst is downplayed to a degree, and the most integral part of Snape’s worst memory doesn’t happen.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix PG-13 Where to Watch
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Director David Yates Release Date June 28, 2007 Cast Daniel Radcliffe , Emma Watson , Alan Rickman , Ralph Fiennes , Rupert Grint , Helena Bonham Carter , Robbie Coltrane , Warwick Davis , Michael Gambon , Brendan Gleeson , Richard Griffiths , Maggie Smith Runtime 138 Minutes
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009)
153 Minutes
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince arrived in 2009 and added a new twist to the story, as Dumbledore’s close companion proved to be a possible Death Eater sent into Hogwarts. Snape, the Half-Blood Prince, left a notebook behind that Harry found and used to aid him through the year. By the end of Half-Blood Prince, things looked dire as the Death Eaters began to infiltrate Hogwarts. While Voldemort demands that Draco Malfoy kill Dumbledore with the wand tied to him, it’s Snape who steps forward and murders the headmaster, taking away Harry’s beloved mentor.
While Half-Blood Prince has one of the more appropriate Harry Potter movie runtimes, Voldemort’s backstory could still have been expanded upon. The film only includes two out of the seven memories that relate to Voldemort’s overall backstory, which would’ve included how he procured the locket, cup, and ring Horcruxes, the Gaunt family, and Tom Riddle’s gradual decline into Voldemort. However, Yates decided to keep the Half-Blood Prince runtime down to about the same length as Goblet of Fire, with the latter being slightly longer.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince PG-13 Where to Watch
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Director David Yates Release Date July 7, 2009 Cast Daniel Radcliffe , Emma Watson , Rupert Grint , Michael Gambon , Tom Felton , Alan Rickman , Jim Broadbent , David Thewlis , Maggie Smith , Robbie Coltrane , Julie Walters Runtime 153 Minutes
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
146 Minutes
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The final book in the Harry Potter series is Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and it was split into two movies, both having some of the shorter Harry Potter movie runtimes. The first of the films came out in 2010 and saw Harry, Hermione, and Ron on the run after the death of Dumbledore. This entire movie focuses on the relationship between the three leads as their friendship fractures, breaks, and is eventually mended to make them stronger than ever as they return to battle Voldemort and the Death Eaters to end the war once and for all.
The only thing that felt somewhat pushed to the wayside was Dumbledore’s backstory and how Harry wrestled with that relationship and trust.
Splitting The Deathly Hallows into two movies worked well for covering the final book, and the film cut off the story at the perfect place. Due to having two films to tell the entire tale, much of what happened in The Deathly Hallows book was included. The only thing that felt somewhat pushed to the wayside was Dumbledore’s backstory and how Harry wrestled with that relationship and trust. In addition, Harry’s internal struggle between pursuing the Hallows and the Horcruxes wasn’t addressed in the tight two and a half hours.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 PG-13AdventureFamilyFantasy Where to Watch
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Director David Yates Release Date October 17, 2010 Cast Bill Nighy , Emma Watson , Richard Griffiths , Harry Melling , Daniel Radcliffe , Julie Walters
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
130 Minutes
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The final movie in the initial Harry Potter franchise saw Harry and his friends join forces with the wizards that had survived the Death Eaters. It was the Battle of Hogwarts, and everyone gathered to take on the villains and save their school. Most characters had their heroic moments, many beloved heroes died in battle, and Harry had his final battle with Voldemort to end the war and save his school. By the final scene, Harry was allowed to live happily ever after. Concerning the Harry Potter movie runtimes, this movie was shorter than any other in the series.
Despite having the shortest of all the Harry Potter movie runtimes, Deathly Hallows Part 2 covered the second half of the novel well and ended the series on a bombastic note. Certain elements were changed from the book for the better, with Harry and Voldemort’s final battle being much more action-packed and taking place in the courtyard rather than the Great Hall. The only unfortunate part of this was that the tight runtime didn’t allow proper impact for major character deaths like Fred, Lupin, and Tonks.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 PG-13 Where to Watch
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Director David Yates Release Date July 15, 2011 Cast Daniel Radcliffe , Rupert Grint , Emma Watson , Helena Bonham Carter , Robbie Coltrane , Warwick Davis , Ralph Fiennes , Michael Gambon , John Hurt , Jason Isaacs , Gary Oldman , Alan Rickman Runtime 130 Minutes
Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (2016)
132 Minutes
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Five years after the Harry Potter franchise, the Wizarding World came back to the big screen, but the film wasn’t based on books and was instead a story J.K. Rowling created for cinema. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them told the story of Newt Scamander, whose books about fantastic beasts Harry studied in school. Newt is an adult fascinated with the fantastic beasts in the world. However, this series had a bigger arc — the rise of Grindelwald. These Harry Potter movie runtimes were still over two hours, but not as long as many of the earlier films.
The Fantastic Beasts franchise started out strong, and audiences welcomed the new protagonist Newt Scamander with open arms. No books to follow meant runtimes would tell the proper amount of story in the proper amount of time, and the future of Fantastic Beasts seemed bright. While it was clear that Rowling’s talents as a screenwriter didn’t match that of her authorship, the film’s runtime felt comfortable and introduced new magic into the franchise along with an entirely different setting and time period.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them PG-13 Where to Watch
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Director David Yates Release Date November 18, 2016 Cast Ezra Miller , Alison Sudol , Eddie Redmayne , Colin Farrell , Katherine Waterston , Dan Fogler Runtime 133 minutes
Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald (2018)
134 Minutes
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Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald is only slightly longer than the first movie. This was the second movie in the Fantastic Beasts series, and while Newt Scamander was still the main protagonist, there was a lot here to set up a battle mentioned in the original Harry Potter movies between Albus Dumbledore and his greatest rival, Gellert Grindelwald. This saw both Jude Law and Johnny Depp arrive as Dumbledore and Grindelwald, but the movie was mostly a set-up for the upcoming battle with Grindelwald preparing to start a Wizarding War with humanity.
Crimes of Grindelwald is famously where the Fantastic Beasts franchise went wrong, and while the runtime was longer, it still didn’t give enough breathing room for audiences to understand the complexity of the plot with one watch. The second Fantastic Beasts movie was packed to the brim with information and tie-ins to Harry Potter which worked more to its detriment than its success. Canon was retconned many times and despite only being two minutes longer than the first film, Crimes of Grindelwald felt much longer.
Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald PG-13 Where to Watch
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Director David Yates Release Date November 16, 2018 Cast Eddie Redmayne , Dan Fogler , Kevin Guthrie , Callum Turner , Katherine Waterston , Ezra Miller , Ingvar Sigurdsson , Jude Law , Johnny Depp , Alison Sudol , William Nadylam , Ólafur Darri Ólafsson , Claudia Kim , Zoe Kravitz Runtime 134 Minutes Expand
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore (2022)
143 Minutes
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Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore ended up as the lowest-grossing movie in the entire Harry Potter franchise at the box office. When it comes to Harry Potter movie runtimes, it is the longest of the prequels. This caused concern for Warner Bros., and the studio has seemingly given up on the Fantastic Beasts franchise. In the movie, Newt takes even more of a backseat to the war between Dumbledore and Grindelwald, recast in this movie by Mads Mikkelsen. There was still more of this story to tell, but Fantastic Beasts 4 isn’t happening.
Secrets of Dumbledore was still an improvement on Crimes of Grindelwald, and Mikkelsen’s performance was a particular highlight. Unlike some of the other Harry Potter movies, runtimes were never the issue with Fantastic Beasts. Rather, the series didn’t make its intentions clear from the start, canon was broken, Mikkelsen should’ve been the casting team’s first choice, and Newt was slowly ousted as the protagonist. Audiences did get to see Dumbledore’s backstory that should’ve been in Deathly Hallows, but the Fantastic Beasts’ shorter runtimes work for casual fans of the series that aren’t married to book canon.
Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore PG-13 Where to Watch
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Director David Yates Release Date April 8, 2022 Cast Eddie Redmayne , Jude Law , Ezra Miller , Mads Mikkelsen , Dan Fogler , Alison Sudol , Callum Turner , Jessica Williams , Katherine Waterston Runtime 142 minutes
What About The Harry Potter Extended Versions?
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Though streaming sites will boast “extended versions” of the Harry Potter movies, Warner Bros. has only officially released two of the original Harry Potter movies as extended.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets both had extended versions released in which director Christopher Columbus chose which deleted scenes would be edited back in.
The extended version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone only has about seven minutes of additional footage, making it 159 minutes long. Those seven minutes come from six additional scenes and the extension of one more. Most of the extra scenes are less than a minute long.
One of the best of those extended scenes, however, is only 37 seconds long. In the sequence, Harry’s Aunt Petunia cracks open a series of eggs as she’s preparing to cook. As she does, each egg contains a Hogwarts letter for Harry. It’s a great way to showcase how the magic of Harry’s new world will work early on.
The scenes being cut from the movie is understandable, but fans will like the additional details they get from them.
The extended version of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has about 13 extra minutes of scenes, making it 174 minutes long, and includes 19 more short scenes. Some of those scenes include a look at Knockturn Alley and Harry meeting some other Hogwarts students for the first time. The scenes being cut from the movie is understandable, but fans will like the additional details they get from them.
Of the Fantastic Beasts movies in the Wizarding World, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald got an extended cut officially released by Warner Bros. It features just seven more minutes of originally cut scenes, giving more screen time to characters like Leta Lestrange and Nagini in most of them. While the scenes aren’t needed for the movie, hence why they ended up on the cutting room floor, they do help fans get a better idea of the personalities of some of these Harry Potter franchise characters.
How Long Will The Harry Potter Max Series Be?
The New Series Plans To Cover All The Books
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It has been over a decade since the Harry Potter movies ended and two years since the last Fantastic Beasts movies, but the franchise is getting ready for a new chapter. It was announced in 2023 that HBO was developing a new series in the Wizarding World. Not only will it see the return of Harry Potter, but the show will be a new adaptation of all of J. K. Rowling’s novels, unfolding over a decade, similar to the movies.
However, this would be a more thorough adaptation as each season of the show will tackle one book in the series. This will give a lot more time to cover aspects of the source material that the Harry Potter movies cut out. Of course, it will also make for a considerably longer watching commitment for fans. While the Harry Potter movies have a combined runtime of 19 hours and 39 minutes, the new show will be significantly longer.
Though nothing is confirmed, each season of the Harry Potter show will likely feature 10 hour-long episodes for the planned seven seasons of the show. If the series goes according to plan, fans will have at least 70 hours of television to binge-watch when it is all over. While it is certainly a big commitment, many Harry Potter fans have the commitment and passion to do so.