Need to know how to watch the Harry Potter movies in order? You're not alone.
The Harry Potter movies have become a comfort watch for lots of film fans, so it's no surprise that people are constantly trying to track them down. Although they don't have a permanent streaming home, it's very easy to find them online!
This guide lists where you can currently stream the Harry Potter movies in order. We've also included a summary of each movie if you need a refresher!
Here's how to watch the Harry Potter movies in order and don't miss our best Harry Potter movies run down!
- Grab all seven of J. K. Rowling's original Harry Potter books
How to watch the Harry Potter movies in order
If you're long overdue a Harry Potter binge and you're wondering how to watch the Harry Potter movies in order, it's actually very easy.
Unlike watching the Marvel movies in order, there's no time-travel or overlapping stories, just one main story running across eight movies.
Arguably the biggest problem is that the first film was called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone outside of the US and India, causing a little bit of confusion. Beyond that, you just follow the chronological release date of each film to watch them in the right order!
The correct way to watch the Harry Potter movies in order is:
- Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone (2001)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011)
How to watch the Harry Potter movies in order on Peacock
Peacock was the most recent home of the Harry Potter saga in the US, but the films were removed from NBC's streamer at the end of March 2021.
NBCUniversal still holds the TV and digital rights to the movies until 2025, so naturally, the Harry Potter saga found its home on . However, Harry Potter will only be available on the platform in "windows", according to The Hollywood Reporter.
This means all eight movies will be added to and taken off the streaming platform on a relatively regular basis.
You could also watch the Harry Potter movies in order on for a short time last year, but they've been added to the platform once again for a limited time!
HBO Max subscribers can watch the Harry Potter movies in order on HBO Max until June 2021!
How to watch the Harry Potter movies in order on Sky Cinema
UK viewers also won't be able to stream the Harry Potter movies in order right now, either, but the best bet in the UK will be with Sky Cinema. The entire saga was last available on Sky at the end of February 2021, so it's a solid bet they'll be available there again soon.
Adding Sky Cinema to your TV package in the UK costs just £11 a month, but it's always a good idea to check Sky's latest deals page to see whether there's an offer on!
How to watch the Harry Potter movies in order: Can you rent them?
If you just want to watch the Harry Potter movies in order without paying for a streaming service or extra TV subscription, you can find them in the usual online stores.
You can rent or purchase all eight movies on iTunes, Google Play and Amazon.
Below, you'll find a summary of each film, and a widget that will take you directly to where you can find each film so you can easily watch the Harry Potter movies in order!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
After Voldemort killed his parents and tried (and failed, thankfully) to prematurely end his life, Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe) is placed in the care of his stuffy, non-magic aunt and uncle Dursley by Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore.
Harry's magical powers begin to awaken. The Dursleys refuse to send Harry to Hogwarts and try to suppress his powers until Hogwarts' groundskeeper Hagrid arrives to whisk him off to the now-infamous school of witchcraft and wizardry.
Harry befriends fellow student Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) on the Hogwarts Express train, and later becomes friends with Hermione Granger (Emma Watson) after the duo saves her from an escaped troll. The three of them start practising magic, and Harry begins a longstanding feud with entitled Slytherin schoolmate Draco Malfoy, especially after Harry displays a brilliant aptitude for Quidditch.
During the school year, the three kids start uncovering secrets about Hogwarts, including Hagrid’s three-headed dog Fluffy, and a powerful artefact called the “philosopher’s stone”, which is said to offer its weary immortality. Voldemort is revealed to not be dead after all, and in pursuit of the stone, so Harry, Ron and Hermione delve into the school’s depths in order to retrieve it.
The three of them persevere through several terrible trials, ultimately leading to a dramatic confrontation...
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Weasley kids break Harry out of his Privet Drive home in a flying Ford Anglia, after he has been repeatedly warned not to return to Hogwarts by Dobby.
Ron and Harry land themselves in hot water after they crash the car into the Whomping Willow, a huge tree outside Hogwarts. When caretaker Mr Filch’s cat is found petrified alongside the message “the chamber of secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir… beware” written in blood, Harry Ron and Hermione decide to put a stop to the Heir of Slytherin’s plan.
Harry discovers that he can communicate with snakes. This leads some people to believe that he is the Heir of Slytherin. More children continue to be attacked and petrified as the school year wears on. Harry finds the enchanted diary of former student Tom Riddle who had accused Hagrid of opening the chamber of secrets fifty years ago.
Before he’s taken to Azkaban, Hagrid tells Harry and Ron to follow the spiders to meet Aragog in the Forbidden Forest. The giant spider vouches for Hagrid and offers a clue about the monster, later confirmed to be a basilisk.
New Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Gilderoy Lockhart is elected to descend into the Chamber to save Ginny Weasley. Harry and Ron find him preparing to flee, exposing him as a fraud, and they wipe his memory.
Harry makes his way into the chamber, where Tom Riddle reveals he manipulated Ginny into opening the chamber himself, explains he is Lord Voldemort’s younger self and summons the basilisk. After a tense battle, Harry kills the basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor, destroys Riddle's diary with a basilisk fang and saves Ginny, and everything returns to normal at Hogwarts!
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
After another unhappy summer at the Dursleys’, Harry flees the home and ends up taking the Knight Bus to the Leaky Cauldron, where he meets up with his friends and discovers that Sirius Black, a convicted Voldermort supporter has escaped from Azkaban and is on the run.
On the train back to Hogwarts, Harry is attacked by dementors who are searching for Sirius. Once there, the living portrait of the Fat Lady is assaulted and claims that Sirius Black was responsible. Since that means Sirius Black must have broken into the castle, the school is placed on high alert.
On a school trip to Hogsmeade village, Harry discovers that Sirius was his father’s best friend and his own godfather. Remus Lupin, the latest Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, privately teaches Harry how to deal with dementors using the Patronus charm.
Hagrid’s Care of Magical Creatures lessons leads to the execution of Buckbeak the hippogryph. At the scene of the execution, Scabbers, Ron’s rat bites him and escapes, leading the trio to the Shrieking Shack on the edge of Hogsmeade. There, they discover Scabbers is actually Peter Pettigrew in disguise, the wizard who murdered Harry's parents and framed Sirius!
Lupin and Sirius attempt to kill Peter, but Lupin transforms into a werewolf. Sirius tries to fight him off, but dementors arrive to attack him. A mysterious figure stops the Dementors, and Harry believes it's his father. Sirius is captured, but the trio uses Hermione’s Time Turner to travel back in time to save Buckbeak. Harry discovers it he saved his past self from the Dementors, and he casts the Patronus again to save his past self and Sirius before they successfully help Sirius escape.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Harry attends the Quidditch World Cup with the Weasleys and Hermione, but the competition is attacked by Death Eaters, Voldemort’s followers. Back at Hogwarts once again, the next Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher “Mad-Eye” Moody reveals the school will host the Triwizard Tournament, an international competition between Hogwarts and two other wizard schools.
Harry is selected as a fourth champion, even though he maintains he didn’t nominate himself. Harry successfully manages to steal a golden egg from a dragon and saves two people from some vicious underwater beasts, navigating the first two trials with ease.
In Dumbledore’s office, Harry discovers a Pensieve, a magical object which holds Dumbledore’s thoughts. He watches a trial from the past where a former Voldemort follower gives up several other Death Eaters. Although Snape is named among them, Dumbledore vouches for his innocence.
In the final task, Harry and Cedric Diggory search for the Triwizard Cup inside a mysterious hedge maze. When they touch it, they’re transported to a graveyard where Voldemort and Peter Pettigrew are waiting. Peter murders Cedric and he performs a ritual to revive Voldemort properly. Luckily, Harry manages to escape using the Cup and brings Cedric’s body back with him, too.
Moody interrogates Harry about what he saw, but he blows his own cover as Death Eater Barty Crouch in disguise! Barty tries to kill Harry, but the teachers stop him and send him back to Azkaban, and Dumbledore reveals Voldemort was responsible for Cedric’s death to the rest of the student body.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
The Order of the Phoenix is a secret society founded by Dumbledore, and they inform Harry that the Ministry of Magic doesn't know about Voldemort’s return. The Ministry appoints Dolores Umbridge, a new, super-strict teacher of Defence Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.
Dolores tightens her grip on the school, and Harry forms a secret group called “Dumbledore’s Army” in the Room of Requirement. He begins training students to protect themselves from the oncoming threat.
Harry has been experiencing visions of terrible things happening to those close to him, including Arthur Weasley and Sirius Black. He starts receiving Occlumency lessons from Snape so he can stop Voldemort’s influence from invading his mind. Meanwhile, Bellatrix Lestrange and several other Death Eaters escape from Azkaban.
After overthrowing Umbridge’s authority, Harry and five other students head to the Ministry of Magic to save Sirius from the Death Eaters. A huge fight ensues between the wizards, but the Death Eaters overpower the students, taking them all hostage.
Luckily, Sirius and Lupin arrive with other members of the Order of the Phoenix, saving him, but not before Sirius is murdered by Lucius Malfoy. Voldemort arrives, but Dumbledore fends him off in a tense duel. Voldemort escapes, and the Ministry of Magic are forced to admit that Voldemort has returned.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Voldemort begins tightening his grip on the world. He chooses Draco Malfoy to carry out a secret mission at Hogwarts, and Snape swears an Unbreakable Vow with Narcissa Malfoy to ensure he protects her son or carries out his duty if Draco cannot.
During a Potions lesson, Harry discovers his textbook is filled with helpful notes from someone calling themself the “Half-Blood Prince” and begins to excel in Potions lessons. Dumbledore later tasks Harry with retrieving a memory of Voldemort from Professor Slughorn, so he continues to try and impress him.
After Slughorn helps cure Ron of the love potion he accidentally drank, the trio celebrates with some mead, which is poisoned. Harry and Slughorn save Ron’s life. Harry then confronts Draco about the poisoned mead and a necklace that nearly killed another student, and the two have a fierce duel. During the fight, Harry severely injures Malfoy with one of the Half-Blood Prince's curses, but Snape saves Malfoy's life. Harry and Ginny hide the textbook in the Room of Requirement to prevent anyone else from using the spells.
After Harry retrieves Slughorn’s memory, Harry and Dumbledore view it. They learn that Voldemort sought information about Horcruxes, magical devices which enable a wizard to gain immortality by splitting their soul into fragments. Dumbledore concludes that Voldemort had created six Horcruxes and that two have already been destroyed.
Harry and Dumbledore head to a cave where Dumbledore consumes a potion to reveal a third Horcrux, Slytherin’s locket. Although weakened, he defends the duo from zombie-like creatures. They apparate back to Hogwarts to find Death Eaters have broken in. Harry eavesdrop on them, learning that Draco was supposed to murder Dumbledore.
When he hesitates, Snape arrives and kills Dumbledore, revealing himself as the Half-Blood Prince. In the aftermath, the school mourns Dumbledore’s death, and the locket he found is revealed to be a fake. Harry, Ron and Hermione commit to finding the last remaining Horcruxes instead of attending Hogwarts next year.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
In Deathly Hallows Part I, Voldemort’s power continues to grow. Half the Order of the Phoenix use a Polyjuice Potion to disguise themselves as decoy Harrys in order to allow him to escape Privet Drive, but Snape informs Voldemort of the plan. The Death Eaters ambush and kill Mad-Eye Moody, Hedwig and injure George Weasley.
Harry, Ron and Hermione head to Sirius Black’s home after they’re attacked by Death Eaters in the London Underground. There, they learn that the real Slytherin’s locket was stolen, forcing the trio to infiltrate the Ministry of Magic to get it back from its new owner, Dolores Umbridge.
The trio take turns carrying the locket, as it causes powerful negative emotions to whoever wears it. Ron falls out with the pair whilst wearing the locket and storms off, so Harry and Hermione go in search of the Sword of Gryffindor, as Hermione has worked out that it can destroy Horcruxes by themselves. A Patronus creature leads them to the sword, which is hidden under a lake. Harry dives in to retrieve it, but the locket begins to strangle him. Luckily, Ron arrives just in time to save him!
The reunited trio learns from Luna Lovegood’s father that the symbol in Hermione’s book (which Dumbledore left her) represents the Deathly Hallows: the three magical artefacts which make a wizard the master of death. Lovegood then reveals his daughter has been kidnapped, and he was intending to hand them over in exchange, so they escape into the wilderness once more as the Lovegood home is destroyed by Death Eaters.
Snatchers catch them and take them to Malfoy Manor. There, Hermione is tortured by Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry secretly contacts Dobby the house-elf arrives to save them. Dobby drops a chandelier on Bellatrix, forcing her to release Hermione. She throws her knife at Dobby in revenge. Although they apparate away to safety, Dobby dies in Harry's arms.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II
In the final movie, Harry, Ron and Hermione break into Bellatrix’s vault at Gringotts with the help of Griphook the goblin. There, they steal Helga Hufflepuff’s cup, which is another Horcrux, but Griphook steals the Sword of Gryffindor from Harry and abandons them, forcing the trio to escape on the bank's guardian dragon.
Harry realises there must be a Horcrux connected to Rowena Ravenclaw within Hogwarts, and they head back to school via a hidden passage in Hogsmeade. Snape learns of Harry’s return but flees when Professor McGonagall challenges him to a duel. She gathers the student body for a final battle against Voldemort’s forces.
Harry retrieves Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem and returns to the Chamber of Secrets to get another basilisk fang so he can destroy it along with Helga' cup. While Voldemort’s army attacks the school, Harry sees into the Dark Lord’s mind and realises that his pet snake, Nagini, is the final Horcrux.
The trio witness Voldemort explaining to Snape why he cannot use the Elder Wand until Snape is dead. Nagini fatally injures Snape, who tells Harry to take his tears to the Pensieve before dying. When Harry reads the memories held within, Harry learns that Snape was protecting Harry as he loved his mother, Lily.
Harry also learns that he became a Horcrux when Voldemort failed to kill him as a baby and that Voldemort must kill him to destroy the piece of Voldemort's soul within him. Harry surrenders to Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, and Voldemort kills him. Now in limbo, Harry meets Dumbledore, who explains he can either return to his body or move on because he’s free of Voldemort’s influence.
Voldemort announces Harry's death to Hogwarts and demands the school surrenders to him. In a final show of strength, Neville Longbottom draws the Sword of Gryffindor from the Sorting Hat and uses it to kill Nagini after Harry reveals he’s still alive. In a final duel, Harry is finally able to kill Voldemort with the Elder Wand. Nineteen years on, Harry, Ron, Hermione and Draco proudly watch their children head off to Hogwarts at King’s Cross.
