On November 14, fans of the work of Joan Rowling will celebrate the 20-year anniversary of the release of the film "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This Hollywood film adaptation of the first book in the popular series for children and teens was the starting point for the filming of an entire franchise about the boy wizard and his friends. At that time, everyone wondered if the film could reach the success of the source material, which of course seems strange now-with the eighth and final Potter movie already a decade since its release, a television series and a prequel franchise about "fantastic creatures."

Throughout the decade that Warner Bros. Studios has been releasing films about Hogwarts and its heroes, picky film critics have written reviews. For the franchise's anniversary, we've ranked them from blatantly weak adaptations of Rowling's works to strong ones.

8) Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 2002.

The second Potter movie is a routine. Like its predecessor picture, The Chamber of Secrets does not so much adapt Rowling's novel as simply fixes its content on the screen, step by step. Director Chris Columbus's departure into computer graphics poorly compensates for the inexperience of the young actors as they continue to master the profession. The film's lack of discovery of a new world also adds to its mediocrity. Keith Phipps of the A.V. Club Film Society notes: "Try to imagine a universe in which the Harry Potter story existed only in movie format. Would it have been able to capture the audience's attention with such poorly drawn characters? Would our imagination still work after the onslaught of spectacularly realized but creatively mediocre special effects? And would two and a half hours be enough to unmask the unsophisticated monsters that came out of the Scooby Doo franchise? The series so far is based on the audience's familiarity with the characters in the books, rather than offering its own version of the magical world and its actors."

7) Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 2001.

Warner Bros. clearly didn't take much risk by delivering the first Potter book to the multiplexes. The adaptation that started the series is safe in terms of being able to give people what they wanted--what they had already read and loved. "The Philosopher's Stone" slavishly follows the events of Rowling's novel. Scott Tobias of the A.V. Club called the first film a "pop-up novelization" and wrote a skeptical review despite the film's commercial success. "Harry Potter" begins to give way during an expensive-looking game of "Quidditch," a game reminiscent of the middle ground between the one we see in "Rollerball" (1975) and the pod race in "Star Wars: Episode 1 - The Phantom Menace" (1999). It's as fascinating as watching someone else's video game. The creators tried to squeeze as much of Rowling's novel into 152 minutes of screen time as they could, but it's incredibly tiring by the finale. There were other Potterian films in development, but at the moment it looked like the franchise has exhausted itself before it has even begun.

6) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1)

The decision to split Rowling's novel into two parts was made by the film studio both because of its considerable length and for financial reasons. This made the penultimate film of the franchise, which is very expensive, a dull tale of partying, with soap opera-like characters and an exposition before the fireworks factory that is supposed to explode in the last part. "Deathly Hallows: Part I" has its fans, who liked the melancholy backdrop and eccentric twists (like Nick Cave's waltz and animated flashback scene). However AVC critic Tasha Robinson is not among them.

She said: A drawn-out chain of movement in the middle of the film unfolds against a backdrop of gorgeous, Lord of the Rings-style scenery that only adds to its rigidity. The wanderlust keeps getting worse: it's a good thing that (director David) Yates didn't try to squeeze the action of the final book into one movie. And it's subdued the way he tries to build up the tension, patiently building the mood and making the characters feel overwhelmingly uneasy. But the result is a 'jerky' film in which icy brooding alternates with unwieldy exposition and impetuous battles.

5) Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 2007.

"Order of the Phoenix" is notable not for what happened in front of the camera, but for who was behind it. It is the first film directed by David Yates, who also worked on all the subsequent ones, as well as the two spin-offs about "Fantastic Beasts." In terms of narrative, it's a transitional piece, connecting the tragedies of books four and six with... not a very memorable story. At any rate, that was Scott Tobias' verdict on "The Phoenix." is following: With the exception of the gripping opening sequence, there's not that much to remember about the film by large. What is memorable is Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge) masking bottomless anger behind a glued-on smile. During this transitional phase, Dumbledore's Squad and the Order of the Phoenix prepare for the big battles ahead and, apparently, for more exciting movies.

4) "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", 2005.

Unlike the franchise's first films, which meticulously followed Rowling's work, this one is surprisingly " cut down. In order to reflect the content of the 700-page novel, many minor storylines were required. And now Warner Bros. probably would have done things differently after learning what big money the two Deathly Hallows movies would make. Nevertheless, director Mike Newell, says critic Tasha Robinson, has managed to shoot "Goblet of Fire" at a breathtaking pace that is hard to resist even though a fair amount of magic from the prolific Joan had to be sacrificed. "Despite its length, 'Goblet of Fire' whizzes by too quickly on the screen. But its real achievement is that, despite its plot brevity, it tells all the major milestones of the story conceived by Rowling."

3) «Harry Potter and half blood prince», 2009.

Yates's second Potter film is one of the darkest and most mature of the franchise. Certainly there are better pictures in the series, but this one perfectly balances the magic of Rowling's world with some of the capriciousness and melodramatic nature that define the later parts. And that's what Robinson noted in her review. "It took a definite investment in the world of Harry Potter to make "The Half-Blood Prince" relevant and logical; the film makes no concessions to newcomers and, thankfully, wastes no time in addressing themes already covered in previous parts. But connoisseurs will find that the series has matured in many ways just as much as the books. It is the darkest, saddest, most complex Harry Potter movie."

2) «Harry Potter and the prizoner of Azkaban», 2004.

It's hard to overestimate what a breath of fresh air, a dose of real movie magic "Prisoner of Azkaban" was when it appeared in cinemas in the summer of 2004. After the commercially successful but frankly weak Columbus pictures, director Alfonso Cuarón rediscovered the world of Hogwarts on the screen, creating the controversial teenage spirit of this place and the dangerous entities circling around it. The film's style, which critic Scott Tobias of the A.V. Club described as "both darker and more bizarre than in previous installments," contributed to its success. "From the beginning, 'Prisoner of Azkaban' appeals to the elegant fantasies that inspired the Potter cult, but it never overstates them, and reduces many elements of magic simply to background. For the first time, the uninitiated can, indeed, understand what all the hype surrounding Rowling's works is about."

1) "Harry Potter and Deathly Hollows" part 2, 2011.

The final Potter movie is, according to most critics, the best in the series. Some will say, that the last part is always the most memorable--a race to the finish, with more time spent undermining Hogwarts than reviewing its pleasures. But there's no denying that director David Yates and his now-experienced cast delivered a dramatic spectacle that avid fans and casual viewers alike have been waiting for. This is by far the most climactic film of the franchise, emphasizes A.V. Club portal critic Tasha Robinson. "The film dispenses with side quests and open-ended storylines, giving definitive answers to all questions. It puts the often-overlooked supporting actors Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith and Matthew Lewis in the spotlight, and offers interesting dramatic twists and turns worked out with attention and style. From the episode where Rickman surveys from a high tower the prisoner-of-war camp that Hogwarts has become to the confrontation at the end, his narrative works on a grand scale befitting the final act of a series that has captured the world's attention for more than a decade.