Here is my final ranking of the franchise. The top five movies though, I have zero problems with. They are all A plus blast movies. I think any given day, any given rewatch, this top five can fluctuate. At number five, I have the Sorcerer's Stone. As someone who had close to zero interest in this franchise, this movie had a tall task of getting me roped into the world, and it succeeded. The setup of everything is so well executed. It has a special charm to it. Like, I want to watch this on Christmas this year. Chris Columbus did a great job of making me a Harry Potter fan. At number four, I have Deathly Hallows Part 2. This is kind of like Avengers Endgame for me. Like, it has top one qualities, great moments, epic payoffs, but as a movie, I think it's flawed just a hair. I understand this is a massive book. I mean, this was a two-part story, but a lot of little moments either didn't happen or were just split-second stuff here. This movie feels like a greatest hit montage, not necessarily a great movie. And that isn't even really a knock here. Like, I had an absolutely great time seeing this satisfying conclusion to this great franchise. I think the next three are just great movies. This one's a great event, if that makes sense. At number three, I've fallen off my high horse on this one. This was at one, now it's three, Half-Blood Prince. As a Snape fan and this being later in the franchise, I think a mix of recency bias and my love of Snape kind of made me immediately throw this at the one spot. The Slughorn reveal scene is great, everything with Snape is great, Dumbledore's death, then retrieving the fake Horcrux, there's a lot of great moments here, but the next two, I think, do it slightly better. Prisoner of Azkaban is at my number two, and this will probably be number one by like tomorrow. Of all the Harry Potter movies, this is the one I think about the most. All the side characters that were introduced here are the ones that I was the most invested in later in the franchise. I don't know, not much to say other than I love Prisoner of Azkaban. Shout out Gary Oldman. But at my one spot is the best start to finish Harry Potter movie in my opinion, and that's Order of the Phoenix. Voldemort's a good villain, but Umbridge is a little better. Despite the darker tone, I feel like this does a great job of backpedaling from Goblet of Fire and giving us a lot of great Hogwarts moments and little moments of charm. Hogwarts needs to hire Harry as the professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts. The students rebelling against Umbridge, Harry teaching all of them, the Room of Requirement, but that final third act battle between all the wizards and the Death Eaters, and Voldemort versus Dumbledore, and Harry versus own mind, just great stuff. I love this movie.
