Harry Potter · Analysis · 7 books, 8 movies
Did the Harry Potter movies keep up with the books?
Seven books, eight movies. We set each book's pages against its movies' minutes, worked out the screen time every 100 pages got, and how long the series would run had every movie kept the first one's pace.
Key findings
01 · Pages and minutes
The books got 3.4 times as long. The movies didn't.
Philosopher's Stone is 223 pages; Order of the Phoenix is 766. All eight movies run between 130 and 161 minutes, and the longest of them is Chamber of Secrets. Toggle pages or minutes to see each on its own.
Each book's pages, and its movie's minutes
UK first editions · theatrical running times
02 · Screen time per page
Order of the Phoenix got 26% of the first movie's screen time per page.
Philosopher's Stone got 68.2 minutes of movie for every 100 pages. Order of the Phoenix got 18.0. Across all seven books it comes to 34.6. Splitting Deathly Hallows into two movies lifted it back to 45.2.
Minutes of movie per 100 pages
Deathly Hallows: both movies against the one book
03 · At the first movie's pace
Order of the Phoenix would run 8.7 hours.
Give every book the screen time per page Philosopher's Stone got, and the series would run 38.7 hours. It got 19.6, 51% of that. Order of the Phoenix got 2 h 18 min of the 8 h 42 min it would need.
Hours on screen: what each book got, and what it would get at the first movie's pace
68.2 minutes per 100 pages, like Philosopher's Stone
About this data
Download CSV ↓Page counts are the UK first editions, running times the theatrical cuts. Deathly Hallows was made as two movies; both count against its one book. The first movie's pace is Philosopher's Stone's: 152 minutes for 223 pages. The Fantastic Beasts movies aren't adapted from the seven books, so they're left out.
Source: PotterDB (potterdb.com), books and movies. Data as of October 15, 2026.
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