How To Watch The Fantastic Beasts Movies In Order

The three "Fantastic Beasts" movies, all directed by David Yates and written (or co-written) by the disreputable author J.K. Rowling, serve as prequels to the eight extant Harry Potter movies. 

The Harry Potter series takes place at a remote British boarding school for witch-kids and wizard-children, but it is set in the present day; while Harry and his pals learn spells and fight mystical creatures, the outside world of ordinary humans continues in its usual fashion, unperturbed. Wizards pejoratively refer to ordinary people as Muggles, and their magical machinations are kept hidden from prying human eyes. 

Meanwhile, the "Beasts" films are set in 1926, 1927, and 1932, long before Harry Potter was born. They star the nerdy Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magizoologist who studies and cares for a menagerie of, well, fantastic beasts that only wizards know about. The movies take place in America, and come to involve a dangerous wizard criminal named Grindelwald (Johnny Depp, then Mads Mikkelsen), his would-be minion Credence Barebone (Ezra Miller), and their connection to a young Dumbledore (Jude Law). Newt fights a conspiracy with the help of an American auror named Tina (Katherine Waterston), her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol), and the lovelorn Muggle baker, Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). 

The films were released after the Harry Potter series came to an end, and came out in the following order: 

• "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (2016)
• "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" (2018)
• "Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" (2022)

The films are not as highly celebrated as the Harry Potter movies, and their production was infested with problematic artists. In addition to Rowling, better known these days for online transphobic rants, the films also starred Depp, who was in the midst of a domestic abuse trial at the time. After the release of the second film, abuse allegations would also arise against Miller. The first two films were hits. The third, less so.

Although the "Fantastic Beasts" movies are lousy with flashbacks, turgid foreshadowing, and eerie prophecies about the future, they take place in pretty straightforward chronological order. Although they don't involve the character of Harry Potter, a working knowledge of Rowling's novels — or at least the previous eight Harry Potter movies — is necessary to understand what's going on. The books and movies explain the nature and machinations of the Wizarding World, and the "Fantastic Beasts" movies don't slow down to take anyone by the hand. 

That said, the "Fantastic Beasts" movies are all wholly original stories, written for the screen. They are only tangentially related to Rowling's novels. The title of the first movie comes from a spinoff Harry Potter project that Rowling wrote in 2001, between the publication of "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" (2000) and "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (2003). 2001 was when the first Harry Potter movie was released, and Pottermania was sweeping the world. To cash in on the phenomenon, Rowling wrote the fake textbook "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," a book from within the Wizarding World, studied by Harry and his pals. The in-universe textbook was written by an author named Newt Scamander, and the real-life book was credited to him. Newt, it should be noted, does not appear in the Harry Potter movies, except in portraits or on trading cards. 

The premise for the first "Fantastic Beasts" movie was, then, how Newt Scamander came to write his first textbook. Since he's still a young man in the movies, he is still gathering knowledge and field notes. The publication of his textbook hasn't yet happened in his movies. That premise quickly falls away, though, in favor of broader conspiracies, end-of-the-world premonitions, and magical fawns that decide elections (yes, really). 

The first "Beasts" movie, as mentioned, is set in the year 1926 as Newt Scamander travels to America on a research mission. The first part of the movie is a light caper, wherein a creature escapes from Newt's magic suitcase (it's larger on the inside and contains an entire zoo). Newt, in tracking it down, runs afoul of the American Wizard authority (called MACUSA) in the form of Tina. He also accidentally attracts the attention of a Muggle — called No-Majes in the "Beasts" movies — named Jacob, who gets bitten by a magical critter. To cure him of the magical "infection" that results, they gather up Queenie, Tina's sister. Jacob and Queenie fall instantly in love, but aren't allowed to date by Wizard law. 

An artifact in Newt's case, however, is suspicious to the local American Wizards, and he is accused of conspiring with the evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald. The artifact is called an obscurial, a cloud of evil born of repressed magical abilities in children. If children were allowed to live their truth and simply be the person they are, all without being pilloried by the wealthy and attacked by the government, then no evil would form. What an interesting theme! There is enough evidence, it seems, to sentence Newt and Tina to death (!), forcing them to escape and spend a lot of time on the lam. 

The story shifts to Credence, also an obscurial, abused and repressed by his ultra-religious, superconservative mother. A Wizarding bureaucrat named Graves (Colin Farrell) wants to contact and protect Credence, but it will later be revealed that Graves is actually Grindelwald in disguise. There is a massive, public conflagration, and walls topple. Luckily, most wizards know memory-erasing spells, so they are able to keep the destruction secret as they finally apprehend Grindelwald.

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" is available to stream on HBO Max.

I should pause to note that all three of the "Fantastic Beasts" movies are massively complicated, and a lot of smaller plot details, character moments, worldbuilding minutiae, and oblique subplots were left out of the above description. Although the "Beasts" films are not based directly on any novels, they feel like it, clearly trying to cram in a whole novel's worth of plot into their 140-minute runtimes. Although there are only three movies, they contain enough story to fill at least six. 

"The Crimes of Grindelwald" is no exception, so to be brief, the unmasked titular criminal escapes his captors and continues his evil plan to destroy the world. We learn more about Credence's lineage, and that Grindelwald is attempting to form an alliance of evil anti-Muggle wizards. Gridelwald, you see, has a hookah made of a human skull that, when he smokes it, gives him premonitions of the future. When he sees that Muggles are on the cusp of inventing the atomic bomb, he takes action, deciding to stage, essentially, a pre-emptive strike. Newt and Tina re-unite, Jacob is retrieved and his memories are partially restored, and Queenie betrays them all to join Grindelwald's cause. 

Some of this connects to the rise of Voldemort, the villain from the Harry Potter movies, but that character hasn't become an active part of the story yet. This film does, however, introduce a young Dumbledore, one of the main Wizarding World figures. Dumbledore mentions that he and Grindelwald used to be very close. It won't be until the next film that the filmmakers will explain that Dumbledore and Grindelwald were lovers. Depp, it should be mentioned, was already on the outs when "Grindelwald" was released, and it wasn't as big a hit as its forebear. It made $655 million on its $200 million budget. For the next film, Depp was fired. 

"Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald" is available to stream on HBO Max.

"Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" was a relative failure, earning only $407 million on its $200 million budget (low, as these things go). Depp, fired among his legal troubles, was replaced by Mads Mikkelsen, although most of the other original actors (Redmayne, Fogler, Waterston, Sudol, Law) returned. The film was delayed for two years because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and by the time it was released, the film felt cursed. Depp's shadow hung over the movie, and some allegations against Miller were just starting to appear. It would also be in 2020 that Rowling would apparently become an anti-trans bigot full-time after years of expressing her prejudices in smaller ways. By 2020, she had published a transphobic essay on her website and was devoting her life to a new cause. 

All of this scared audiences away from "The Secrets of Dumbledore," and it was largely assured that it would be the final film in the series. Redmayne spoke out against Rowling, as did many other "Harry Potter" actors.

 The plot involved a magical fawn called a qilin, an incredibly rare and gentle animal that can look into people's souls. Grindelwald intends to abduct a qilin, magically corrupt it, and force it to declare him pure of heart. He wants to do this to win a high political position in the worldwide Wizard bureaucracy. Because Grindelwald has stooges and henchmen everywhere, it takes a lot of careful planning by Newt, Tina, Dumbledore, et al, to foil his plot. Newt Scamander is but a supporting character in this film, having sunk into the ensemble. 

None of the films was tremendously well-received, and critics were merely warm. Their respective Rotten Tomatoes approval ratings were 74%, 36%, and 46%. The magic had been tarnished. Warner Bros. is now trying to recapture the Harry Potter brand with a new, well-funded TV series that will retell the events of Rowling's novels. It seems unlikely that anyone will watch the show for reasons other than morbid curiosity. 

"Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore" is available on HBO Max.

Because the "Fantastic Beasts" movies are prequels, one can choose how they want to watch them vis-à-vis the eight extant Harry Potter movies. In terms of chronology, one could easily watch the three "Beasts" flicks first, and then see how well their events dovetail into Harry's story. The "Beasts" movies, though, are clearly derived from known events and characters in the Potter pictures, and a lot of their events are going to seem unclear unless you already know a lot about the Wizarding World. Indeed, the "Beasts" series will make the most sense if you have already seen all eight Potter movies and have also read all seven of Rowling's novels. Watching the "Beasts" movies before having seen every one of the Harry Potter movies is not recommended. 

The director of all three "Beasts" flicks, David Yates, also helmed the final four Potter movies, and he carries over his signature hazy visuals and overstuffed storytelling. Watching the movies in release order is doubly wise, as one will see that they all feel like an aesthetic piece. The first four Potter movies have stronger directorial signatures, and each bears a unique look. They are adventures unto themselves. When Yates took over, the series became preoccupied with subplots and mythmaking. They suffered as a result. In terms of their tone and mood, the "Beasts" films aren't so much prequels to Harry Potter as a direct continuation. 

/Film has reported that there are no plans for a fourth "Beasts," and that Newt Scamander will likely never see the light of day again. Indeed, it's hard to imagine a world where huge audiences flock back to Harry Potter after Rowling's rants and the general waning of interest overall. These days, Harry Potter is more about its merch, video games, costumes, theme parks, and other consumer goods. Time will tell if this beast can be revived, but there doesn't seem to be enough necromancy in the world. 

The Harry Potter movies are available on HBO Max.