--- title: "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" year: 2016 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them" fi1m_score: 61 critics_score: 66 critics_reviews: 24 published: "2026-09-19T16:20:10.266727+00:00" updated: "2026-09-19T16:20:26.554211+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) Directed by David Yates · 2h 13m · MPA PG-13 · Fantasy, Adventure **Fi1m score: 61** · Critics 66 from 24 reviews *In a sentence:* A suitcase full of wonders that the film keeps putting down to set up the sequel > Rowling’s first screenplay returns to her world with a pleasant zoologist, a suitcase of creatures and a warm supporting turn from Dan Fogler. The beasts are a delight; the rest is scaffolding for films not yet made, and the two stories never quite meet. ## Synopsis New York, 1926. Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a British wizard who studies magical creatures, steps off a boat with a battered suitcase. Inside it is a zoo. At a bank the case comes open, a duck-billed Niffler makes for the vault, and Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a cannery worker hoping for a loan to open a bakery, leaves with the wrong luggage. Porpentina ‘Tina’ Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), a demoted official of the Magical Congress, arrests Newt for using magic in front of a non-wizard and hauls him before Graves (Colin Farrell). Newt wants his creatures back before the Congress finds them. Meanwhile something unseen is tearing up streets, Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton) preaches against witches, and Tina’s sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) reads minds over dinner. ## Review J.K. Rowling has written her first screenplay and David Yates, who directed the last four *Harry Potter* films, has shot it. The book of the title is a pretend textbook with no story in it, so a story had to be found. They have found two: a gentle comedy about a shy zoologist chasing his escaped animals around 1926 New York, and a dark thriller about something smashing that city’s streets while a preacher blames witches. The first is a pleasure. The second exists to start a franchise. They share 133 minutes and not much else. The pleasure first. When Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) finally climbs down into Newt’s suitcase it opens onto a shed and then onto a landscape. Stuart Craig has built it as a row of habitats, a patch of savannah, a snowfield, a nest, each with its own weather, joined by a wooden walkway. It is the best set in the film and the one the film spends least time in. The creatures are drawn with care, above all the Niffler, a duck-billed thief with a pouch that holds a jeweller’s window, working through a bank vault like a burglar with a deadline. We laughed at it every time it appeared, and we cannot say that of anyone human on screen. Colleen Atwood dresses everyone precisely: Newt in a teal coat a size too big, Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston) in a mackintosh that says she has been demoted, her sister Queenie (Alison Sudol) in pink silk nobody on her wages could afford. Philippe Rousselot shoots the city in brown and rain-grey and the inside of the case in full colour, and the film is plainly happier in the case. James Newton Howard’s score swells at every reveal, whether or not the reveal deserves it. Fogler and Sudol are the reason to stay. Jacob is a cannery worker who wants to open a bakery and has just been refused the loan; he has no magic and is delighted by everything, and Fogler plays that delight without a trace of the gormless sidekick. Queenie reads minds and is bored by most of them. When she reads his, over a dinner that assembles itself in mid-air, Sudol makes it tender rather than cute. A late scene between the two of them, which we will not describe, was the only point at which we felt a lump in the throat, and it has nothing to do with the wizard plot. Eddie Redmayne plays Newt with his chin tucked and his eyes on the floor, addressing his lines to the side of the frame. It is a coherent idea of a man who prefers animals to people, and it wears thin by the second hour, when the script needs him to carry a thriller and he keeps stepping out of it. Waterston has anxiety to play and little else. Colin Farrell, as Graves, the Congress official who takes an interest in Newt’s case, is the one adult who speaks as though the plot matters, and the film steadies whenever he is in it. The thriller is where it comes apart. Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton) preaches against witches on church steps and keeps her adopted children in fear; Credence (Ezra Miller) flinches through his scenes. Rowling the novelist builds by accumulation and trusts the reader to hold it all. A screenplay cannot, and Mark Day, cutting between the animals and the anti-witch rallies, is left joining scenes that do not want to be joined. The last half hour is buildings coming apart in grey dust, and we were bored by it, and then annoyed at being bored, because the film had spent two hours telling us that the people in these streets mattered and then stopped looking at them. Against the Potter films it is missing the school. Hogwarts gave those stories a home and a term to fill; Newt has a suitcase and a boat to catch, and the film never decides whether he is a visitor or a lead. See it for the case, the Niffler and Fogler, at home, where the middle hour can be paused for tea and the grey finale looks like what it is. Children under ten may fidget; the church scenes earn the 12A. It is a first chapter, and it never forgets it. *Fi1m score 61, published 19 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics like it, and the praise lands in the same places. The beasts come first: the Niffler is singled out repeatedly, and the creature work is credited with most of the film’s charm. The 1920s New York setting, MACUSA and the inside of Newt’s briefcase are admired as immersive world-building. Eddie Redmayne’s diffident Newt is well liked, as are Dan Fogler and Alison Sudol in the central quartet. Several reviews welcome the allegory about fear and intolerance as timely. The reservations cluster on the story. Even admirers call it busy and overstuffed, slow to start, with too many plot threads and a sense that it is laying foundations for sequels rather than standing alone. Characters are the other complaint: thin, and Newt himself generic to some. The spread is wide, from full marks at Radio Times and NME to dismissals at Sight and Sound, Slant and the Los Angeles Times, which finds it proficient but uninspired. ### Reviews we read (24) - **Radio Times** (★★★★★): The critic praises it as a spellbinding, monsterific marathon full of wonder, wit, and a strong foundation for the franchise, highlighting the CGI beasts and imaginative details. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review-a-spellbinding-monsterific-marathon/) - **Evening Standard**, Melanie McDonagh (80/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's design, comedy, story and morality tale, highlighting Eddie Redmayne's performance as Newt and the fun with the beasts. The world of Harry Potter feels just right without Harry. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-film-review-a3399211.html) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (80/100, inferred): The critic finds this a wonderfully enjoyable adventure and early Christmas treat from the Potter universe, with a rich, baroque world and strong performances especially from Eddie Redmayne as the diffident Newt Scamander. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/nov/13/fantastic-beasts-review-jk-rowling-eddie-redmayne-harry-potter) - **The i Paper**, Matthew Turner (★★★★): The critic praises the immersive script, inventive world, strong performances especially Redmayne, Sudol and Fogler, and the timely allegory. Calls it enormously entertaining with great characters and impressive effects. [Read](https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review-31549) - **The Telegraph** (4/5): The film is praised as a spectacular feat of world-building that turns out to be the most unexpectedly relevant blockbuster of 2016, with its immersive 1920s New York setting and magical elements. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/0/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review-jk-rowlings-spect/) - **Empire**, Helen O'Hara (70/100, inferred): The critic credits Rowling's invention and the glorious beasts but notes structural problems with the creatures as a sideshow and excessive action sequences. It succeeds at world-building with visual panache but is busy, leaving hope for stronger sequels. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/fantastic-beasts-review/) - **Screen Daily** (70/100, inferred): The critic calls it a solid extension of the franchise that starts slowly but delivers spectacle and emotion in the darker parts, with strong craft but some placeholder feel. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review/5111269.article) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, THR Staff (70/100, inferred): The film is far from perfect but action-packed and splendid-looking, with strong invention in its effects and world-building that invites viewers in effectively. It is less successful with its character-bonding elements and backstory, which sometimes feel checklist-like. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/fantastic-beasts-find-review-946770/) - **The New Yorker** (70/100, inferred): The movie marks a welcome change from the cloistered settings of the Potter franchise and offers more opportunity for the supernatural to knock against the humdrum. The subway can be scarier than a castle. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/movies/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them) - **Total Film** (70/100, inferred): The critic says it doesn’t quite enchant like the best Potter movies but there are enough thrills and genuine chills to satisfy. It is an exceedingly solid franchise-opener that builds a new world with bridges to the Potterverse. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review/) - **Variety**, Peter Debruge (70/100, inferred): The film does double-duty as an imagination-tickling fantasy adventure and a deeply troubled commentary on tolerance, fear, and bigotry. It amplifies both the strengths and weaknesses of Rowling’s storytelling approach while establishing a foundation for future installments. [Read](https://variety.com/2016/film/reviews/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review-harry-potter-1201916885/) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (50/100, inferred): The film opens a new subdivision in the wizarding world in 1926 New York, where dark forces cut swaths of destruction. It features whimsically entertaining creatures but adults that are less engaging and a protagonist who feels fundamentally generic. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/movies/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review-eddie-redmayne-j-k-rowling.html) - **Little White Lies**, Elena Lazic (3/2/2): The critic sees it as overlong with two-dimensional characters and lacking genuine magic or wonder, a disappointment compared to the original Harry Potter films. [Read](https://lwlies.com/reviews/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them) - **Los Angeles Times**, Justin Chang (30/100, inferred): It is a lively, fast-paced adventure that balances high-spirited whimsy and darkly brooding atmosphere. Yet it is a busy, proficient, uninspired movie soliciting brand loyalty more than wonderment. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-fantastic-beasts-review-20161114-story.html) - **Sight and Sound**, Kim Newman (30/100, inferred): The critic finds it a fiddly, ambitious but awkward start to the prequels, spectacular yet with grating characters and lacking narrative drive from the source book. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/fantastic-beasts-where-find-them-review-fiddly-start-jk-rowlings-wizarding-prequels) - **Slant Magazine**, Eric Henderson (30/100, inferred): The film exists resolutely outside of salience and doggedly within the comfort of escapism, too timid to serve as a respectable time-killer. Director David Yates is incapable of mining dramatic ironies or finessing nuance from the material. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them/) - **NME**, Larry Bartleet (5/5): The film combines enthralling visuals with surprising emotional heft and is more enchanting to the inner kid than the Potter films in some ways. It singles out the buoyant central quartet of characters and the wonderful life given to the creatures, especially the Niffler. [Read](https://www.nme.com/reviews/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review-1854017) - **Consequence** (B+): The critic praises the film's delightful creatures and visual storytelling as a successful adaptation of a textbook into an adventure that balances fantasy with real-world darkness. They single out the beasts for their whimsical charm and the way they drive the story's joy amid darker themes. [Read](https://consequence.net/2016/11/film-review-fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them/) - **Digital Spy**, Rosie Fletcher (80/100, inferred): It is a success that is thrilling, stunning, warm and witty, a welcome return to the intricately drawn universe. The critic singles out JK Rowling’s screenplay for deftly mixing child-friendly slapstick with relevant politics and the gorgeous visuals of MACUSA and Newt’s briefcase. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a814117/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review/) - **Den of Geek**, David Crow (3.5 out of 5): The film is an ambitious and entertaining extension of the wizarding world that succeeds in bewitching audiences despite some stumbles and an overabundance of plot threads. It singles out the charming central quartet, especially Dan Fogler’s Jacob and Alison Sudol’s Queenie, along with the imaginative world-building inside Newt’s briefcase. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review/) - **The Ringer**, Alison Herman (70/100, inferred): The critic sees it as a fine movie and incredible blueprint for expanding the Potterverse, praising its sense of discovery and immersive world-building through CGI and lore details. They note flaws in plotting and underdeveloped elements but highlight the joy of exploring new aspects of the wizarding world. [Read](https://www.theringer.com/2016/11/22/movies/fantastic-beasts-is-a-fine-movie-and-an-incredible-blueprint-5caaca24135d) - **HeyUGuys**, Stefan Pape (3/5): The film is engaging with mightily impressive visual effects and some breathtaking, immersive set-pieces, but it lacks the sense of adventure, a tangible antagonist, and enough comedic light relief found in the Harry Potter films. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review/) - **The Wrap**, Jason Solomons (60/100, inferred): The critic finds the film visually impressive with detailed sets and inventive creatures but criticizes its lack of cohesion, franchise predictability, and missing emotional depth or wit compared to the Harry Potter films. He praises the design and the central performance but notes it feels overstuffed and not quite balanced. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/fantastic-beasts-review-jk-rowling-reveals-shes-creature-habit/) - **Polygon**, charles-bramesco (50/100, inferred): The review finds the film a marvelous theme park with dense world-building and spectacle but criticizes it as an adequate film lacking narrative depth, nuanced characters, and meaningful ideas, with Rowling's script failing to match the visual thrills. [Read](https://www.polygon.com/2016/11/16/13656650/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them-review/) ## Details - **Director:** David Yates - **Director:** David Yates - **Writer:** J.K. Rowling - **Cinematography:** Philippe Rousselot - **Editor:** Mark Day - **Music:** James Newton Howard - **Production design:** Stuart Craig - **Costume design:** Colleen Atwood - **Producer:** David Heyman, J.K. Rowling, Lionel Wigram - **Cast:** Eddie Redmayne as Newt; Katherine Waterston as Porpentina 'Tina' Goldstein; Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski; Alison Sudol as Queenie; Colin Farrell as Graves; Jon Voight as Shaw Senior; Ron Perlman as Gnarlak; Johnny Depp as Grindelwald - **Runtime:** 2h 13m - **Certificate (MPA):** PG-13 - **Release (the US):** 18 November 2016 - **Genres:** Fantasy, Adventure - **Budget:** $180 million - **Box office:** $809 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vso5o11LuGU ## Where to watch in the US - Peacock: streaming, uhd - HBO Max: streaming, uhd - Hulu: add-on, hd - Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Apple TV: rent $4.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $4.99, uhd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $9.99, uhd - Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd *Checked 2026-09-19.* Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## Awards - Academy Awards 2017: Best Production Design (nominated); Best Costume Design (won) - BAFTA Film Awards 2017: Best Production Design (won) - European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film 2017: European Film Award – People's Choice Award for Best European Film (nominated) ## If you liked this - *Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* (2004), Fi1m 82: Cuarón’s entry, where Rowling’s world first felt lived in rather than toured — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/harry-potter-and-the-prisoner-of-azkaban.md) - *Spirited Away* (2001), Fi1m 92: A girl among creatures in a bathhouse, every one of them drawn with love — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/spirited-away.md) - *Hugo* (2011), Fi1m 76: Scorsese’s clockwork orphan in a Paris station, a children’s film adults enjoy more — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/hugo.md) - *Paddington* (2014): A polite creature loose in a city, and a family comedy that works - *A Monster in Paris* (2011): French animation, the 1910 flood, a giant flea who sings; slighter and sweeter --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/fantastic-beasts-and-where-to-find-them