Click here!

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Adventure, Family, Fantasy

The adventures of writer Newt Scamander in New York's secret community of witches and wizards seventy years before Harry Potter reads his book in school.

The critical consensus

Rowling and Yates have given us a terrifically good-natured, unpretentious and irresistibly buoyant film. There’s a scene in a speakeasy where someone orders “six shots of giggle-water.” This film felt to me like twelve.

*****Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian, 13/11/2016

Big, bold and teeming with imagination, it is so busy world-building that it occasionally forgets to have fun. But with this heavy lifting done, there’s every reason to hope for an even more magical adventure next time.

***(*)(*)Helen O'Hara, Empire Online, 13/11/2016

Doesn’t quite enchant like the best Potter movies but there are enough thrills and genuine chills to satisfy.

***(*)(*)Jamie Graham, Total Film, 13/11/2016

Five years on from Harry Potter’s last screen outing, Fantastic Beasts could easily have seemed derivative or anti-climactic. Instead, it’s a thoroughly invigorating affair which only whets our appetites for its sequels.

****(*)Geoffrey Macnab, The Independent, 14/11/2016

The first instalment of a five-part saga, what follows is an undeniably big and entertaining fantasy adventure film. Happily, though, it doesn’t rely entirely on CGI trickery to cast its spell. Like its hero it’s full of magic, but endearingly modest with it.

****(*)Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 16/11/2016

David Yates revisits the Harry Potter universe for a thrilling, suitably magical spin-off starring Eddie Redmayne.

****(*)Katherine McLaughlin, The List, 16/11/2016

A disappointment that underlines how great the original Harry Potter films were.

**(*)(*)(*)Elena Lazic, Little White Lies, 17/11/2016

Grand and giddy fun, Fantastic Beasts is just the snowy, wondrous escapism we need as Christmas approaches. It’s magic.

****(*)Allan Hunter, Daily Express, 18/11/2016

This highly entertaining twist on jazz age America breathes fresh life into the Potter franchise – and, with its themes of society divided and the persecution of minorities, the film finds itself to be perfectly timed.

****(*)Wendy Ide, The Observer, 20/11/2016


Features about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Preview: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Alistair Harkness, The Scotsman, 15/11/2016

Where and when?

General release. Check local listings for show times.

Comments: 0 (Add)

To post a comment, you need to sign in or register. Forgotten password? Click here.

Find a show


Search the site


Find us on …

Find us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterFind us on YouTube