Welcome to The Man of Recaps. This is all eight original Harry Potter movies. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone starts on a dark and stormy night on Privet Drive in England.
An actual wizard and witch are dropping off a newborn baby with a lightning scar on his forehead. It's Harry Potter. Fast forward 11 years and Harry is living in the cupboard under the stairs at his evil aunt and uncle's house. He does all the housework. They're basically Cinderella-ing him.
One day he gets a mysterious letter, but his uncle won't let him see it. Uh, things get out of hand, so they travel to a remote B&B. But knocking down the door is this giant bear of a man, Hagrid!
He's come to deliver Harry's letter personally. Turns out it's an acceptance letter to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. What?
That's right! You're a wizard, Harry! That's right!
Hidden all around us muggles is the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Hagrid takes Harry to the bank. Turns out his parents were loaded.
Even without the wizard stuff, finding out you're secretly rich is pretty sweet. Hagrid also picks up a mysterious sorcerer's stone-shaped package. More on that later. Anyway, Harry gets his magic wand, but turns out it's a brother wand to the wizard who gave him his lightning scar, the evil Lord Voldemort.
We don't speak his name. He's just he who must not be named. And he was a dark lord that terrorized England about 11 years ago until he killed Harry's parents and then Harry... bounced the spell back and defeated him, whoa!
Don't worry, he's definitely dead, not lurking in the shadows, regaining his power. Anyway, time for school. The train leaves from the imaginary platform nine and three quarters. Luckily, Harry finds a red-headed wizard family that shows him how to get on, and boom, it's the Hogwarts Express. Harry becomes best friends with the red-headed Ron Weasley, and also Hermione Granger, who read all of her spell books over the summer.
Hogwarts is a magical castle with an awesome Great Hall. The headmaster is Albus Dumbledore, wisest, kindest, and most powerful wizard in the world. The first years have a sorting ceremony where a hat places them into one of Hogwarts'four houses. Gryffindors are for the good guys, and Slytherin is for nasty pricks like Draco Malfoy. Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff exist, but they don't get a lot of screen time.
Anyway, Harry's sorted into Gryffindor, hooray! So they start learning some magic, it's Leviosa, not Leviosa. They've got some nice teachers, like the stern but fair Professor McGonagall, and some real a-hole teachers, like Severus Snape, the Potions Master, who for no apparent reason seems to hate Harry most of all. Turns out witches and wizards literally ride broomsticks and Harry's a natural, hey!
So they sign him up for the Quidditch team. There's a lot of throwing balls through hoops, but Harry is the seeker who chases the golden snitch. Whoever catches it gets so many points, they basically single-handedly win the game.
For Christmas, Harry got his father's old invisibility cloak, which lets him get into all sorts of trouble. One day, while exploring the castle, they stumble upon a room guarded by a giant three-headed dog. They ask Hagrid, because he's in charge of animals at Hogwarts, he lets it slip that it's guarding the storm. sorcerer's stone. And in the Forbidden Forest, someone's been drinking unicorn blood.
Oh no, it's Voldemort! He wants to steal the stone and regain his life. They do the responsible thing and tell a teacher, but teachers here aren't really helpful with these kinds of adventures. So they go themselves.
Turns out someone has indeed bypassed Fluffy. They face a series of challenges that first-year students can easily pass. And at the bottom, it's the defense against the Dark Hearts Professor, Quirrell! No way, I was sure it was that dastardly Snape. No, it's me, and the back of my head is possessed by the spirit of Voldemort.
Ew. He tackles Harry, but Harry's hand burns him to the touch. Yes, that's right, dear mother's love, Harry, is too much for the evil Voldemort to handle. So the day is saved, except Slytherin won the house cup.
But Dumbledore is incredibly biased, awards Harry a million points for saving the world. That seems like a really unfair way to run a school. Next is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
Harry stays with his aunt and uncle over the summer, but at least he gets a bedroom now. And in that bedroom one day is a house elf, Dobby, who causes some magical mischief. House elves are basically slaves to wizards, but he's come to warn Harry of a dastardly plot this year.
Harry ignores him for now and hitches a ride with his friend Ron. He meets Ron's younger sister, Ginny Weasley, who he may end up banging later. They flue powder to Diagon Alley and meet Lucius Malfoy, who's an even bigger prick than Draco.
The Malfoys are an old, pure-blood wizarding family who look down upon muggle-borns like Hermione. Anyway, they drive to Hogwarts, but crash the car into a tree, so it runs off and hides in the forest. Their new defense against the dark arts professor is Gilderoy Lockhart, who is very charming, but utterly incompetent. It seems the Chamber of Secrets has been opened this year, and students are showing up petrified. Harry knows it must be Draco, so they brew some polyjuice potion and pose as his henchmen, Crabbe and Goyle.
Hermione's backfires, though, turns her into a cat. Hello, latent furry fetish. Anyway, turns out He finds out Draco's a prick all the time, but he doesn't know anything about the Chamber of Secrets.
But later, Harry finds a mysterious diary holding the spirit of Tom Riddle. Tom shows him the flashback to the last time the Chamber was opened. It was Hagrid! He let out the beast, the giant spider!
That's why Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts, and indeed, he's blamed for it again this year. But Harry and Ron go to the forest to clear his name. They find Hagrid's giant spider friend, Aragog.
Aragog explains he's not the chamber monster. Spiders don't petrify people. Basilisks petrify people.
Spiders do eat people though, and hello my latent arachnophobia! Luckily their wild car comes and busts them on out of there. The girl's bathroom ghost, Moaning Myrtle, knows the Chamber of Secrets is right here.
They do the responsible thing and tell a teacher, but teachers are useless. Now it turns out Harry can talk to snakes, that's a very rare ability called Parseltongue. And it's exactly the thing you need to open Salazar Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets. This guy had a big thing for snakes.
Anyway, Ginny Weasley is down there. Turns out she found Tom's diary first, and it was possessing her, using her to open the chamber. And indeed, the spirit of Tom Riddle is here, draining her life so he can come back.
See, if you include his middle name, Marvolo, his name's actually an anagram for, I am Lord Voldemort! Harry thinks that's pretty dumb, but he does control the basilisk. Luckily, Harry made friends with Dumbledore's phoenix, Fox, who comes to save the day by giving him the sorting hat. It also scratches the basilisk's eyes out so it can't petrify him, but it can still definitely eat him. Luckily, the sorting hat contains the sword of Godric Gryffindor, and since he's still not very good at magic yet, he just stabs this thing with the sword.
He grabs a basilisk tooth and stabs the diary, which, oh yes, explodes the spirit of Tom Riddle. So the day is saved, then Dobby shows up. His master turns out as Lucius Malfoy. Harry figures it out that Lucius was the one who slipped Ginny Weasley the diary. Lucius denies it, hands it to Dobby, but inside is a sock.
Turns out if you give a house elf a sock, they're freed. And... their magic is way stronger than wizards, I'm not sure how they were ever subjugated in the first place.
Now it's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Over the summer, there's some standard magical mischief. Then Harry takes the night bus, which can do some fun magic things.
Its driver is a shrunken Jamaican head and a coked out Billy Crystal. The new danger is Sirius Black. who's escaped from Azkaban. He was the Potters'best friend, but he betrayed them to Lord Voldemort and now wants to come kill Harry.
So the train is searched by the Azkaban guards, the Dementors. They feed on fear and will literally suck out your soul. Luckily, their new defense professor Lupin is here to scare it away.
He is neither evil nor incompetent. He's a fantastic professor. Teach them how to deal with the shape-shifting Boggarts. He does have a secret though, and it's made very obvious that he's a werewolf.
He also teaches Harry the Patronus charm, which is how you fight Dementors. Hagrid's also a professor this year, teaching magical creatures. Unfortunately, Draco's a dick and gets himself scratched by the hippogriff, and so they're gonna put it down.
Hermione punches Draco in the face, but they still can't stop it. Just then, it's a big black wolf. Oh, it's the animagus form of Sirius Black.
Professor Lupin busts in, but turns out he's working with Black, their old friends. But they're not here to kill Harry, they're here to kill Ron's pet rat? who's actually their old friend, Peter Pettigrew! Yes, this grown man's been the Weasley's pet rat for 13 years. Turns out it was he who betrayed the potter's to Voldemort.
Sirius Black's innocent, he's a great guy, and actually Harry's godfather. Unfortunately, it's the night of the full moon, so Lupin werewolves out, Peter Pettigrew escapes in the madness, and the werewolves lure it away, but not before he's grievously injured Sirius. The Dementors find him, and Harry's Patronus charm is not gonna be enough! They're getting their souls sucked out!
But then across the lake, a huge Patronus knocks them all away! So they live, but Sirius is still gonna be executed, so Hermione pulls out her time machine, which she was using to take extra classes. They go back in time and retrace their steps.
This time, they save Buckbeak. They get to the Dementor Lake, and Harry's like, huh, someone's standing right here! Cast the Patronus that saved me.
Duh, Harry, it's your future self! Boom, big Patronus, good job! So they help Sirius escape on the Hippogriff, and they get back just in time for...
Ron to have missed out on this whole adventure. Unfortunately, Lupin's forced to resign because parents don't want a werewolf teaching their kids. But other than that, the day is saved. Number 4 is Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
The new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is Mad-Eye Moody. He's a gruff ex-cop with a magical eye and a bit of a drinking problem. Now, Hogwarts is hosting exchange students this year.
It's the Hot Girl School from France and the Cool Boy School from Bulgaria. It's the year of the Triwizard Tournament, where the Goblet of Fire picks three wizards to compete for ultimate glory. It can't be Harry, though. It's for seniors only.
So the Hogwarts champ is super sexy Twilight guy Cedric Diggory. The other two are Victor Crumb and Fleur Delcour. But wait, the goblet spits out one more name. You guessed it. It's Harry Potter.
Potter. This ruins the whole name of Triwizard Tournament, but rules are rules, gotta let him compete. His first task is to fight a dragon, which Harry is woefully unequipped for. He basically flies around on a broom and lucks his way into winning.
Then it's time for the winter formal dance. Harry's got a crush on Cho from Ravenclaw, but he's not much of a ladies'man. He's like, what's up, girl? I'm looking for a Gryffindor in the streets, Slytherin in the sheets.
Know what That's a hilarious line. And in fact, you can buy one on a t-shirt. A link in the description or somewhere around here, I hope. It's not actually a great pickup line though, so Harry goes with a random friend. Anyway, the next challenge is an underwater one.
Long story short, Harry passes. And the final challenge is the mysterious hedge maze. Harry and Cedric get there at the same time, and boom, the trophy teleports them to the finish line.
Wait, actually... This is a creepy graveyard and there's Wormtail with a baby Voldemort! Gross!
With no warning, they immediately kill Cedric Diggory. What? This isn't Game of Thrones! Then it's time for Voldemort stew.
Add some bone to the father, a hand to the servant, a little blood to the enemy. Luckily it's Pirates of the Caribbean style, only need one drop. And boom, stew's done! You got a fully reanimated Lord Voldemort.
His new body can touch Harry without exploding to dust, so it's time for a wizard's duel to prove that he's the best. Harry gives it his best effort. But wait, this isn't supposed to happen. Yes, Harry's wand is the brother to Voldemort's. They can't duel, so in the feedback explosion, Harry manages to escape and makes it to the finish line, where he delivers the bad news Cedric's dead and Voldemort's back.
Mad-Eye Moody takes him to safety, but turns out his drinking problem's not alcohol, it's Polyjuice Potion! He sees Barty Crouch Jr., the Death Eater, and the real Mad-Eye Moody has been locked in the trunk the entire school year. Where does he poop?
Anyway, the day is saved, except Cedric died and Voldemort's back, so never mind, it's not saved at all. Next up, it's Order of the Phoenix. Harry finally cut his hair, it was getting a little shaggy back there, and late one night, some weird-looking adults creep into his room. What's up, kid? We're the Order of the Phoenix.
They take him to Sirius Black's hideout, he looks a lot better now after a shower and shampoo. Anyway, the Ministry of Magic doesn't want to believe that Voldemort's back, so they've reformed the Order of the Phoenix, the unofficial group to fight Voldemort. At Hogwarts, the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor is Ministry employee Dolores Umbridge. She is both evil and incompetent.
She's the kind of teacher that only teaches to the test, and she enjoys inflicting corporal punishment on students, which is not allowed at Hogwarts, so the Ministry passes a law to make it allowed. Harry and friends recruit like-minded students to Dumbledore's army, where they are going to meet in the Room of Requirement that turns into whatever you need it to be, and Harry will teach them what defensive spells he actually knows. He tries a new line with Cho, SUP- girl, I bet my parcel tongue can open your chamber of secrets. Yeah, Harry, that one works, first kiss.
Eventually, though, Umbridge finds their room and thinks Dumbledore's building an army to take over the ministry. Dumbledore's under arrest, but being the most powerful wizard in the world, he not going to jail. Unfortunately, this leaves Umbridge totally in charge, and she's gonna torture Harry for more information, but Hermione's got a great idea to take her to the Forbidden Forest to show her Dumbledore's secret weapon, which turns out to be Hagrid's giant half-brother, and a herd of angry centaurs that supposedly rape and murder her. Then Harry has a vision of Voldemort torturing Sirius in the Hall of Prophecies.
So Harry and the kids go down there, they find the prophecy that states Harry is in fact the Chosen One, that's the only one who can defeat Voldemort, but no, it was a trap! This crazy lady is Bellatrix Lestrange. Voldemort's most loyal follower and recent escapee from Azkaban.
They're here to get the prophecy, but the kids have been practicing their magic. Unfortunately, they're still teenagers and these are adult dark wizards. But Sirius Black's an adult too, punches Lucius in the face. The rest of the order comes in and they have a big wizards battle. But no, Sirius is hit by Avada Kedavra, the death spell, and he floats back into this random stone archway.
Then Voldemort himself shows up, then Dumbledore himself shows up. These two have a real wizard's battle with all sorts of crazy spells, but in the end it's clear they're evenly matched, so Voldemort peaces out for now. But not before the Prime Minister shows up and has to admit Voldemort's back, so the day is somewhat saved.
Now it's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Their new teacher this year is Professor Slughorn. He loves finding kids that will later be famous.
But wait, he's not defense against the dark arts, he's a potions master! That means Snape finally gets his dream job! Now on his first day, he offers a reward of a luck potion to anyone who- who brews the best.
Harry's got a secondhand book that was previously owned by the Half-Blood Prince. He's got all sorts of notes in the margins on how to do it better, so Harry follows those, and it is much better than the book. Harry wins the luck potion. If you care about Quidditch or Ron, Ron's the new goalie and he makes out with some girl, but that's enough of that, because there's trouble afoot. Some girl has been cursed by a cursed necklace that was intended for Dumbledore, and then Ron's poisoned by a poisoned whiskey intended for Dumbledore.
It's almost as if someone's trying to kill Dumbledore. As always, Harry suspects Draco and confronts him with the spell he saw from the Half-Blood Prince book, but oh, it's a lot more lethal than he expected. Ginny Weasley makes him throw the book away, having had a bad experience with the Tom Riddle diary herself.
She's also hit her growth spurt, and these two have some chemistry, and oh, they get smooching. Harry, your best friend's sister, you dog. Meanwhile, Dumbledore's been looking through old memories of Voldemort.
There's one where he asks Slughorn about some dark magic, but in the memory, Slughorn doesn't tell him anything. It's... been tampered with though, he needs Harry to get the real memory.
Harry befriends Slughorn, but he still won't talk about it, so it's time for some Felix Felicitas. The luck potion gives Harry the great idea to basically get Slughorn stinking drunk, and yes indeed he hands over the memory. Young Voldemort asks him about horcruxes.
A horcrux is an item in which you store a torn off piece of your soul. It can make you functionally immortal, but it's very dark magic. Voldemort's like, huh, well hypothetically if I were to do it, I think I'd make seven. Dumbledore was like, of course, I should have known. Tom Riddle's diary.
That was a horcrux, as was this ring that I found offscreen. And I think I know where a third is hidden. In a desolate cave in the center of a black lake, the horcrux is hidden under a potion which must be drank to retrieve it.
Dumbledore is like, yo bro, I'm gonna chug this whole thing! And he starts getting totally wasted, but like a good bro, Harry forces him to chug the rest. So they got the Horcrux, but unfortunately zombies attack, but fortunately Dumbledore's the strongest wizard of all time, so they make it back, but Harry hides because Draco Malfoy shows up. Indeed, the Dark Lord chose him to kill Dumbledore. It's like, yo Draco, you're a huge prick, but you're not evil, come on.
And indeed, you start to feel bad for Draco, he was born into this life, and the Death Eaters are there to make sure he goes through with it. But Draco chickens out, so Severus Snape has to step in. What, Snape, you're my best friend, I trusted you.
Shouldn't have done that, old man. Vodacadabra! Oh, Snape kills Dumbledore! Gah! Guess he really was evil this whole time.
Harry chases after him and uses the Half-Blood Prince spell on him, but he deflects it. He's like, you dare use my own spell against me? I'm the Half-Blood Prince!
Whoa! Also, turns out the Horcrux Locket is a fake. Someone named R.A.B. stole it years ago and replaced it.
So... the day is not saved at all or worse than ever. Next it's the Deathly Hallows part one.
They gotta move Harry to a safe house, so they all drink some polyjuice potion for a lot of decoy Harrys, but they're attacked as soon as they leave. Voldemort himself shows up, and they have another wand battle. He's using a different wand this time, but this one fails him too, so Harry's able to escape, and everyone's safe except Mad-Eye Moody, who died.
R.I.P. They're safe behind spell protections now, so Ron's older brother Bill gets married, but they get the news the Ministry has fallen and Voldemort's taken over, so the Death Eaters bust in, start shooting the place up. Harry and his friends make it out. They hide in a safe house, and they're attacked by the Death Eaters.
in Sirius's house and they realized his brother's initials were R.A.B. Turns out he was the one that had the locket, but it was stolen by this thief who then sold it to Dolores Umbridge. Apparently she survived the centaurs and is part of Voldemort's new puppet government, which is a lot more evil than the last one. They polyjuiced some employees to sneak in there and without much of a plan just smack Dolores and grab the necklace, get out of there just in time.
but a lot like the Lord of the Rings, one does not simply destroy a Horcrux, and also like the One Ring, when you wear it, you become a whiny little brat. They camp in the woods for a while until Ron gets mad for no reason and leaves. Harry and Hermione have a silly dance, I know they're just friends, but I'd ship it.
They decide to visit Harry's old house, where they find a mysterious old lady, but she's not an old lady, she's Voldemort's snake in disguise. Then one night, Harry finds a doe Patronus that leads him to a frozen lake, where there's the Sword of Gryffindor. Instead of using magic, he strips down and goes for a swim, forgetting to take off the cursed necklace.
Luckily, Ron came back just in time. They figured this sword can probably destroy the Horcrux, but oh, it fights back! It shows Ron the Harry Hermione fanfic I wrote, but Ron's determined to keep this movie PG-13. Now in Dumbledore's biography, turns out the dark wizard Grindelwald he defeated, well, they used to be best friends. And he signed a letter with this mysterious symbol, which also appears in this other book, and Luna Lovegood's dad was wearing it.
Oh, Luna Lovegood's one of their friends, by the way. She's real nice, but a bit strange. They visit her dad, and he tells them about the Deathly Hallows. It's an old lizards fairy tale about three brothers who tried to cheat death. One got the Elder Wand to beat all wands, one took the Resurrection Stone to bring back the dead, and one had an invisibility cloak, a lot like Harry's.
But he pulls a Lando Calrissian, I'm sorry I had no choice, cuz he had to betray them. The Death Eaters come and they get out of there, but then there's some bounty hunters find them. They take them to the Malfoys and throw them in the dungeon with this motley crew.
Then Dobby the house elf shows up. He's unaffected by teleportation wards, so he busts them out, they have a little fight, and Dobby gets him out of there, but not before Bellatrix throws a knife and... Oh!
Oh, it stabs Dobby! They rescued a goblin from the Malfoys'dungeon, and with the help of some polyjuice potion he agrees to sneak them into Gringotts. Bellatrix's vault is guarded by an actual dragon, and also everything in there has the duplication curse on it, so things get out of hand pretty quickly. They manage to get another horcrux, but the goblins betray them, so they have to free the dragon and bust on out of there.
Voldemort finally realizes they're hunting his horcruxes, and Harry sees in his mind that there's one in Hogwarts related to Ravenclaw. So they warp outside Hogwarts and meet Tumbledore's less famous brother, who has a secret passage to the castle in his room. Hogwarts is a dreary place now, with Headmaster Snape in command. But Harry stands up to him, and McGonagall comes too.
They have a teacher fight, and Snape runs away. So Hogwarts is free, but Voldemort shows up with his full army, and he can easily break down the barrier. And it's the Battle of Hogwarts!
Epic battle! But our main characters are on Horcrux duty. They grab a basilisk fang and stab the cup.
Then Ron and Hermione finally make out. They've had kind of a romance going this whole time. Harry talks to the ghost of Ravenclaw and finds the Horcrux is her lost diadem, but Draco's there to stop him.
Unfortunately, his henchmen are pretty dumb and accidentally set the whole place on fire. Harry's escaping on a broom, but he goes back and saves Draco. Yeah, people ship that too. So they destroy that, and Voldemort realizes he's just got one Horcrux left, his snake, Nagini.
Now, even the Elder Wand has been failing him, and Voldemort realizes it's because Snape killed Dumbledore, he's the true master of the wand. Sorry, bud, you've been a loyal servant, but I have to kill you. He leaves him to bleed out, so Harry gets to see Snape's final memory tears. Turns out, Snape and Harry's mother, Lily, were childhood best friends, and he loved her all through the years, even when she married his bully pup. So when Voldemort killed her, Snape was broken!
So from that moment on, Snape was a good guy, and all these years he's been protecting Harry. But Dumbledore made Snape keep his cover as a Death Eater all these years in case Voldemort came back, even ordering Snape to kill him when the time came! Oh! You see, the dough was Snape's Patronus, because that was Lily Potter's animal!
You still love her after all this time? Always. Oh, I'm crying everywhere!
Anyway, Voldemort's called a ceasefire because he wants Harry to come 1v1 him in the forest. Harry shows up for the final battle, but it's not much of a tool. Voldemort basically one-shots him. So, Harry's dead. But Dumbledore's there to explain it's not actually the afterlife.
You see, when Harry was a baby, Voldemort accidentally made him a Horcrux, so it was his own soul that Voldemort just killed inside Harry. But Harry plays dead for now, and Voldemort goes back to Hogwarts like, I did it! Darkseid won! He promises to be less of an evil overlord and more of a creepy uncle, but Neville Longbottom won't stand for that.
He's ready to keep fighting. Neville, you've come such a long way since year one. In fact, he looks like this now.
He's Neville Hotbottom. So he pulls the sword of Gryffindor from the hat, and Harry gracefully lets everyone know he's still alive. So it's Hogwarts battle round two!
And it ends with the final beam battle between Harry and Voldemort. But Harry has the power of love, so he starts winning. What, the Elder Wand fails me, how? You see, it was Draco who disarmed Dumbledore, and then later Harry disarmed Draco, so the true master of the Elder Wand is Harry Potter! Neville slashes that final horcrux, and he who must not be named, the immortal Dark Lord Voldemort, is finally defeated.
Interestingly, this leaves Harry as the master of all three Deathly Hallows. He's got the invisibility cloak and the Elder Wand, and Dumbledore secretly gave him the Resurrection Stone, which doesn't actually do much, lets you talk to your memories of the deceased. But Harry snaps the wand, figures that's too much power for one person, and the day is all the way saved. In the epilogue, our 20-year-old heroes are doing their best to look 37 as they send their kids off to Hogwarts. And that's how the Harry Potter saga comes to an end.
Congratulations! You've made it! Thanks for watching this long video. If you like my style, hit that subscribe button.
I'm bringing you the best recaps of TV shows and movies, like the first Fantastic Beasts. Make sure you watch that before you see Crimes of Grindelwald in theaters.