The Harry Potter Movie Series: A Decade of Fluctuating Enthusiasm

Like its predecessor, Chamber Of Secrets doesn't so much adapt Rowling's source material as joylessly transcribe it onto the screen, beat by beat. Don't tell apple- polishing Hermione, but the first couple, at least, might have struggled to earn a passing grade. Nonetheless, a pattern of fluctuating enthusiasm does reveal itself as you make your way through every A.V. Club take on every new adventure at Hogwarts.

The A.V. Club has been following the Harry Potter franchise since its inception, and in honor of its 20th anniversary, we've rounded up our contemporaneous reviews for each installment and done our best to put them in order of general site preference. Our own Noel Murray even offered a ranking of the whole series a few years ago.

With hindsight, it's possible to see a spectrum of quality in these all-ages blockbusters. Which seems very quaint today, with the eighth and final Potter movie now a decade in our rearview mirror and the series now a holiday-season (and year-round cable-TV) perennial, despite the general cruddiness of both the Fantastic Beasts prequels and Rowling's public remarks.

Back then, the big question on everyone's mind was whether the films could match the success of their source material - and maybe even if the first one would even prove successful enough to spawn a whole corresponding movie series. J.K. Rowling's almost inconceivably popular kid- lit fantasy series has come a long way since its debut in 2001.

Here are our reviews of each Harry Potter installment, ranked in order of general site preference:

Harry potter movie series