Harry Potter Movie Summaries: Brief Overviews of Films 1–8

Harry Potter: Short Summaries of All the Movies

It’s been many years since the first Harry Potter movie—Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone—made its way to theaters. Harry Potter went through a lot with his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. There was adventure, heartbreak, and even death—all the elements that shaped Harry into the man he needed to be to face the dark and evil wizard Lord Voldemort.

We all know the classic battle of book vs. movie, of which one is better and how the books have more details, but although I’ve read the books religiously since they came out, I will stick to the movie franchise. I will give a brief summary of the events that transpire in each of the movies.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

A young orphan boy by the name of Harry Potter lives with his relentlessly cruel Aunt Petunia, Uncle Vernon, and cousin Dudley Dursley. Harry discovers he is a wizard on the eve of his 11th birthday when a half-giant named Hagrid, who later becomes a dear friend, comes to take him to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry learns that when he was a baby, the dark and evil wizard Lord Voldemort came into his home and murdered his parents but was destroyed when trying to kill Harry because the spell he used backfired.

Once at Hogwarts, Harry is sorted into Gryffindor house, one of four houses, at the wizarding school; the others are Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin. He becomes best friends with Ron Weasley, the red-headed youngest boy in a house of seven children; and Hermione Granger, the bushy-haired know-it-all. Harry learns a bit of magic, joins the Gryffindor Quidditch team, gets to know his professors, and, surprisingly enough, makes a few enemies (aka the Slytherin Draco Malfoy and his gang).

Harry, Ron, and Hermione learn that the Sorcerer's Stone—a stone with the power to turn the one in possession of it immortal—is being held at Hogwarts for safekeeping. They begin to suspect that Professor Snape, the sour Potions professor who seems to have a grudge against Harry, wants to steal the stone.

They try to stop him but find out later that, in fact, it was Professor Quirrell, the stuttering and timid Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher, who wanted to steal the stone. Professor Quirrell was trying to resurrect Lord Voldemort, who was disturbingly incognito under Quirrell's turban in the back of his head. Harry defeats Quirrell with his “love” touch, granted by his mother’s protection when she sacrificed herself to save him.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry is back at Hogwarts, even though Dobby, a house elf, tried to stop him from going because he knew he was in danger. Once there, students, including Hermione, turn up petrified by a mysterious monster. Everyone believes that Harry is the culprit, and he is accused of being the Heir of Slytherin and opening the Chamber of Secrets.

Salazar Slytherin, one of the founding fathers of Hogwarts, shortly before being sacked from the school, created a secret chamber in which he stored a horrendous monster, and he vowed that one day his heir would return to open the chamber and release the creature inside.

When Ron’s sister, Ginny, is taken into the chamber, Harry and Ron go with the “help” of Professor Lockhart, the new (and very self-absorbed) Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher, who turns out to be a fraud, to rescue her. Harry finds an unconscious Ginny in the chamber with a handsome teenage boy. This boy turns out to be the memory preserved in a diary of Tom Marvolo Riddle, which, when unscrambled, spells out: I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.

Harry defeats the basilisk, the creepy giant snake monster in the chamber, with the help of Dumbledore’s pet phoenix, Fawkes, and stabs the diary with one of the snake's fangs, destroying Tom (aka Lord Voldemort) and saving Ginny.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner Azkaban

After accidentally blowing up his Aunt Marge, who had rudely insulted his mother, Harry leaves his uncle’s house in a rage. He is not expelled from school because the Ministry of Magic is concerned about his safety since Sirius Black, a fugitive from the wizard prison Azkaban, is out to get him.

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The school is being watched by Dementors—life-sucking, cloaked, grim reaper-like creatures that guard Azkaban. Harry draws in these creatures and decides to learn how to defend himself from them with the help of the newest professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Lupin. Later, Harry learns that Sirius Black is actually his godfather and that the crime that got him imprisoned was that he gave Voldemort information about the whereabouts of the Potters and killed about a dozen muggles and a wizard by the name of Peter Pettigrew.

It turns out that Harry’s father, James, had had a group of mischievous friends that called themselves the Marauders, and they had created the Marauder’s Map, a magical map that had the layout of the entire castle and told the whereabouts of everyone in the castle. The Marauders—made up of James Potter, Harry’s father; Remus Lupin, the new professor; Sirius Black, Harry’s godfather; and Peter Pettigrew, the man that Sirius supposedly killed—were Animagus; they could turn themselves into animals, except for Lupin, who was already a werewolf.

Later on, Ron is taken captive by Sirius in his Animagus form (a dog) not to harm him but because of his rat Scabbers, who was actually Pettigrew in his Animagus form. Ultimately, Harry lets Sirius go when it is explained that it was, in fact, Pettigrew who committed the crimes Sirius was accused of and was under Voldemort’s orders. In the end, Sirius’ name is not cleared since Pettigrew escapes, but he and Harry form a connection when Harry realizes he's innocent.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry is back at Hogwarts, where this year, the Triwizard Tournament will be taking place. The Triwizard Tournament is a magical competition with two other magical schools—Beauxbatons and Durmstrang—which consists of three very dangerous challenges.

The Goblet of Fire selects a champion for each of the schools—Viktor Krum for Durmstrang, Fleur Delacour for Beauxbatons, Cedric Diggory for Hogwarts, and to everybody’s surprise, Harry Potter. No one knows how Harry was selected since he didn’t put his name in the goblet, but he has to participate since he is bound by a magical contract.

The challenges are difficult, and Harry receives help from Hagrid, Dobby, and even the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Professor Moody. In the last challenge, when head-to-head with Cedric, they make a pact that they will win together, but when they touch the Triwizard Cup to seal the victory, they are transported to a graveyard. There, they find Peter Pettigrew, who kills Cedric (“the spare”) and resurrects Lord Voldemort with Harry’s blood.

Voldemort summons his followers, the Death Eaters, which include Lucius Malfoy, the father of Harry’s enemy, Draco. Voldemort challenges Harry to a duel, where he is able to escape because his wand and Voldemort’s are twins and can’t fight against each other. Harry returns to school, where he finds out that Moody is, in fact, a Death Eater that used magic to take the real Moody’s appearance so that he could sneak into the school and make sure Harry won the tournament to get him in Voldemort’s hands.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry is accused of using magic in front of a muggle, but this time, he is taken to trial, where he is found not guilty because of Dumbledore’s interference. He returns to Hogwarts, where he spends the school year wallowing after witnessing the death of Cedric Diggory, and because no one in the Order of the Phoenix seems to be paying him any attention.

The Order, which is a secret group of wizards that are fighting against Voldemort, includes Dumbledore, Sirius Black, the Weasley family, and various others, including Snape, whom Harry loathes.

Meanwhile, at school, Harry forms a secret organization of his own called Dumbledore’s Army, where he acts as a teacher to other students that think that they are not learning much under the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Professor Umbridge. Harry even starts dating one of his students, Cho Chang (it doesn’t last long), and he secures loyalty from some of his friends, including Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood.

When Harry finds out that Lord Voldemort has captured his godfather, Sirius, he embarks on a mission for his rescue at the Department of Mysteries, located in the Ministry of Magic, with a group of his loyal friends. It turns out to be a trap that costs Sirius’ life when the Order has to go rescue them.

Dumbledore consoles a distraught Harry and informs him of a prophecy that concerns him that was made before his birth. The prophecy says that a boy will be born on July 31 (which is Harry and Neville’s birthday), that that boy will be marked (which Harry was), and that none can live while the other survives (you come up with your own theory on this one!).

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

The muggle world is suffering the consequences of the battle in the wizarding world. Dumbledore arrives at the Dursleys' home to ask Harry to help him recruit Horace Slughorn to become the new Potions teacher, and, to everyone’s surprise, Snape takes the cursed Defense Against the Darks Arts position.

Once at Hogwarts, Harry and the gang face their biggest challenge yet—hormones. Ron likes Hermione; Hermione likes Ron. Ron dates Lavender Brown, and Hermione gets mad and starts dating Cormac McLaggen, Ron’s rival on the Quiddich field. Harry runs interference between Hermione and Ron while crushing on Ron’s sister, Ginny; Ginny dates Dean Thomas, and Harry wants to crush his head.

While all this is happening, Harry is having meetings with Dumbledore, where he is showing Harry memories about Voldemort so that Harry can get to know his enemy since he will ultimately have to face him. They also confirm Dumbledore’s conclusion that Voldemort created seven Horcruxes—pieces of his soul that he inserted into different objects that have great meaning to him—with the intention of making himself harder to kill. They have already destroyed two Horcruxes—the diary in Harry’s second year and Slytherin’s ring, which Dumbledore found and destroyed.

Toward the end of the school year, Dumbledore asks Harry to accompany him on a dangerous journey into a cave to find a Horcrux. They beat the obstacles that Voldemort placed to protect the Horcrux—Salazar Slytherin's locket—and leave the cave with it and a weakened Dumbledore.

When they return, they realize that Hogwarts has been infiltrated by Death Eaters, which were let into the school by Draco Malfoy, who Harry suspected all along of being a Death Eater even though everyone thought it unlikely. Malfoy was instructed by Voldemort to kill Dumbledore, but when it came to it, he couldn’t commit the act. Instead, Dumbledore’s trusted professor, Snape, murders him and escapes with the Death Eaters, including Malfoy.