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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
67
$9.99
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66
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Girl from Monaco, The
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Song of Sparrows, The
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What Goes Up
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Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
91
Hurt Locker, The
89
Goodbye Solo
88
Tulpan
87
Gomorrah
86
Seraphine
84
Summer Hours
83
U2 3D
83
Revanche
83
Tyson
82
Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country
82
Sugar
82
Hunger
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil
81
Il Divo
81
Beaches of Agnes, The
80
Food, Inc.
80
Tokyo Sonata
79
Harvard Beats Yale 29-29
78
Boys: The Sherman Brothers' Story, The
78
O'Horten
77
Every Little Step
77
Sin Nombre
75
24 City
74
Treeless Mountain
74
Afghan Star
74
Two Lovers
74
Song of Sparrows, The
74
Lemon Tree
71
Pressure Cooker
71
Jerichow
70
Shall We Kiss?
70
Tony Manero
70
End of the Line, The
69
Valentino: The Last Emperor
69
Unmistaken Child
67
$9.99
67
Rudo y Cursi
67
Girlfriend Experience, The
66
Adoration
66
Moon
65
Sex Positive
65
Departures
64
Outrage
64
Examined Life
64
Throw Down Your Heart
64
Lymelife
63
Tokyo!
63
Cheri
63
Dead Snow
63
Tetro
63
Great Buck Howard, The
62
Cherry Blossoms
62
Big Man Japan
62
Not Forgotten
61
Sunshine Cleaning
60
Under Our Skin
59
Sleep Dealer
58
Julia
58
Easy Virtue
57
Away We Go
57
Merry Gentleman, The
57
Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love
56
Girl from Monaco, The
56
American Violet
55
Brothers Bloom, The
54
Is Anybody There?
54
Pontypool
54
Stoning of Soraya M., The
52
Quiet Chaos
50
Management
48
Alien Trespass
45
Whatever Works
42
Little Ashes
42
Tennessee
40
Limits of Control, The
40
Paris 36
38
Gigantic
36
Life is Hot in Cracktown
35
New York
28
Big Shot-Caller, The
28
Surveillance
22
What Goes Up
18
Downloading Nancy
16
I Hate Valentine's Day
xx
Call of the Wild
xx
Home
xx
Offshore
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Warner Bros.
FILM:
GAMES:
MPAA RATING: PG for some scary moments and mild language
Starring
Daniel Radcliffe,
Rupert Grint,
Emma Watson,
John Cleese,
Robbie Coltrane,
Richard Harris,
Ian Hart,
and
Alan Rickman
An adaptation of the first of J.K. Rowling's immensely popular novels about Harry Potter, a boy whose life is tranformed on his eleventh birthday when he learns that he is the orphaned son of two powerful wizards and possesses unique magical powers of his own.
| GENRE(S): |
Fantasy
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
J.K. Rowling (novel)
Steven Kloves
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Chris Columbus
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: May 28, 2002
Video: May 28, 2002
Theatrical: November 16, 2001
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
152 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
UK / USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
A red-blooded adventure movie, dripping with atmosphere, filled with the gruesome and the sublime, and surprisingly faithful to the novel.
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
It's eye-filling, well-cast, often very funny and executed with great imagination and flair.
90
Variety
Todd McCarthy
The script is faithful, the actors are just right, the sets, costumes, makeup and effects match and sometimes exceed anything one could imagine.
90
New Times (L.A.)
Gregory Weinkauf
Happily, then, the first movie of the Harry Potter series casts a splendid spell, as screenwriter Steve Kloves has transcribed J.K. Rowling's novel nearly to a T, with precious little tweaked or trimmed.
88
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
Can there be higher praise for a motion picture designed to capture a beloved book with fidelity, thoroughness and affection? Only this: They made it better.
88
New York Daily News
Jami Bernard
If the movie doesn't ultimately transport us to places The Wizard of Oz once took us, that may be partly because "The Sorcerer's Stone" is just the first chapter, with more magic waiting to be parceled out in the coming years.
80
Washington Post
Desson Thomson
Retains (and in many cases, boosts) as much of the spirit [of the book] as you could reasonably expect. And it makes a worthy attempt to duplicate Rowling's engaging sense of humor.
80
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
What saves Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is what created it in the first place: J.K. Rowling's enrapturing imagination. At those sporadic moments when the film allows us to share in Harry's wonder, it lets us recapture our own as well.
75
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
At its best, the film's visual dazzle equals the tasty wordplay of the novel. But it is overlong, overscored, and curiously misshapen.
75
Christian Science Monitor
David Sterritt
Columbus has done a rousing job of bringing Rowling's rambunctious story to the screen. The eerie corridors and ever-shifting stairways of Hogwarts are as daunting, haunting, initially bewildering, and ultimately comforting as when Rowling painted them in prose.
75
USA Today
Claudia Puig
Though the film will undoubtedly please the young viewers who flock to it, ultimately many of the book's readers may wish for a more magical incarnation.
75
New York Post
Jonathan Foreman
As entertaining as it is amazingly faithful.
75
Chicago Tribune
Mark Caro
Does it immerse the uninitiated into a new, fabulous world? Yes. To the book's many readers, does this feel like the real "Harry Potter"? For the most part, yes.
75
San Francisco Chronicle
Bob Graham
Absolutely the best single moment, beautifully presented, comes when the orphaned Harry looks in a mirror and sees his parents there. It is brilliant in its simplicity and very moving.
75
Entertainment Weekly
Lisa Schwarzbaum
That sense of déjà vu is at once this Harry Potter's balm and its limitation: many charms, but few surprises.
70
Newsweek
David Ansen
Columbus's Harry Potter has many delights, but the magical alchemy that the book seemed to achieve so effortlessly eludes it.
70
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
Is the movie any good? At the dawn of the twenty-first century, when art is defined by commerce, this question is beside the point.
70
Film Threat
Michael Dequina
Yes, this "Harry" does indeed fly -- just don't expect the movie to soar into the higher altitudes of imagination.
70
TV Guide
Maitland McDonagh
It may be long, but it's not boring -- how could it be when jack o' lanterns float lazily overhead in the dining hall, and the venerable Maggie Smith turns into a cat?
67
Austin Chronicle
Marc Savlov
Columbus' film version is fine, and it's bound to make kids happy while simultaneously generating untold box office, but if you haven't yet picked up a copy, don't let the film override the novel; set aside a weekend, dive in, and then head off to the cineplex to take in this well-done companion piece.
63
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
A firm, ringing yes and no on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. The best thing about it may be that it will lead many back to read -- or re-read -- the book.
63
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
It's a very busy movie, designed to appeal to short attention spans, and it leaves you feeling full, but not satisfied, because it's missing the most important ingredient of all: genuine magic.
63
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
All it lacks are the crucial things an inspired director could have provided: spark, soul and magic.
60
Wall Street Journal
Joe Morgenstern
What's on screen, though, is a cautious approach to cinema wizardry -- broad, colorful strokes and flash-bang effects that turn J.K. Rowling's words into a long, cheerful spectacle with a Muggle soul.
60
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The English cast is fun; but this is more spectacle than story, and the Steve Kloves script deserves better handling than director Chris Columbus -- plus any number of studio deliberators -- gave it.
60
Salon.com
Andrew O'Hehir
This version of the Potter saga is fun and harmless rather than memorable or imaginative. That's certainly no crime.
60
Village Voice
J. Hoberman
There's a palpable avoidance of risk as this new mythology is wheeled gingerly into the marketplace and carefully positioned to zap your pre-sold brain...Solid but uninspired, Harry lacks brio. It's respectable and a bit dull.
58
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
In their hands [Terry Gilliam or Tim Burton or even Steven Spielberg], Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone might have made as terrific a movie as it is a book. When Columbus got the job, however, it was guaranteed only to be a commercial success.
50
Time
Richard Corliss
The film lacks moviemaking buoyancy -- the feeling of soaring in space that Rowling's magic-carpet prose gives the reader. The picture isn't inept, just inert.
50
The New Yorker
Anthony Lane
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is, despite its trickery, that plainest and least surprising of artifacts; the work of art that is exactly the sum of its parts, neither more nor less. [19 Nov 2001, p. 78]
50
Washington Post
Rita Kempley
Potter-philes are sure to get what they want -- if what they want is, in fact, an exacting version of J.K. Rowling's charming children's fantasy. If it's enchantment they are after, that's quite another matter.
50
Slate
David Edelstein
As a movie, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone has no inner life -- no pulse -- of its own: It's secondhand.
40
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
Given that movies can now show us everything, the manifestations that Ms. Rowling described could be less magical only if they were delivered at a news conference.
40
LA Weekly
Manohla Dargis
A clumsily directed, painstakingly faithful adaptation thats heavy on plot, light on nuance, and features in its title role a young newcomer whose most striking quality is an almost preternatural absence of oomph.
40
New York Magazine
Peter Rainer
I wish Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone had developed more of a life of its own instead of being essentially a flat visualization of the book.
 The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 138 User Votes
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