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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 141 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Fantasy
Written by:
J.K. Rowling (novel)
Steven Kloves
Directed by: Chris Columbus
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 16, 2001
DVD: May 28, 2002
Running Time: 152 minutes, Color
Origin: UK / USA
Summary
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.
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Home Alone
GAMES: Playstation: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database
What The Critics Said
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...
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.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
It's eye-filling, well-cast, often very funny and executed with great imagination and flair.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >Newsweek David Ansen
Columbus's Harry Potter has many delights, but the magical alchemy that the book seemed to achieve so effortlessly eludes it.
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.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Michael Dequina
Yes, this "Harry" does indeed fly -- just don't expect the movie to soar into the higher altitudes of imagination.
Read Full Review >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?
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
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.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
All it lacks are the crucial things an inspired director could have provided: spark, soul and magic.
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.
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
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]
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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >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.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 7.0 (out of 10) based on 141 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jon L gave it a6:
Unlike the second one, does not show it's length, and with a fine cast and set design to keep things afloat, but slavishly workmanlike and deadening in it's writing and directing and with rather mediocre special effects in key scenes.
Tom K. gave it a7:
The film is fun very enjoyable, but it's not matching the book's environment as well, it's a little bit more childish than the books.
Ruan H. gave it a7:
It gets better with the second attempt, but does not quite capture me as much as I would like it to. The actors are becoming better in their roles, which leaves a big promise for the next installment.
Andrew N. gave it a7:
Average but has its merits for remaining faithful to the book and giving a good insight into Harrys world.
Jack B. gave it an8:
A great movie that was taken off an awsome book.
John D. gave it a3:
The story was kind of fun, but the kids couldn't act and many scenes dragged on and on and on...
Mariah R. gave it an8:
this movie was really good but too different from the book to get a ten.
