Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them 2016 10... Now
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Released in late 2016, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them serves as a prequel and spin-off to the Harry Potter series, marking J.K. Rowling's debut as a screenwriter. Directed by David Yates, who helmed the final four Potter films, the movie transports audiences to 1926 New York City, roughly 70 years before Harry Potter’s story begins. Plot Overview
The story follows Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), an introverted British magizoologist who arrives in New York with a magically expanded leather suitcase full of rare and endangered magical creatures. Chaos ensues when a "No-Maj" (the American term for Muggle) named Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler) accidentally switches suitcases with Newt, leading to several beasts escaping into the city.
As Newt tries to recapture his creatures with the help of Jacob and sisters Tina (Katherine Waterston) and Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), he finds himself caught in a web of rising tensions between the magical and non-magical worlds. Meanwhile, a dark force known as an Obscurial is wreaking havoc on the city, and the mysterious Percival Graves (Colin Farrell) is conducting his own investigation with a hidden agenda. Cast and Key Characters
Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander: A passionate naturalist dedicated to the study and preservation of magical creatures.
Katherine Waterston as Tina Goldstein: A demoted Auror working for MACUSA (the Magical Congress of the United States of America).
Dan Fogler as Jacob Kowalski: An aspiring baker and the first Muggle lead in the franchise. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2016 10...
Alison Sudol as Queenie Goldstein: A free-spirited Legilimens (mind-reader).
Ezra Miller as Credence Barebone: A troubled young man suppressed by his anti-magic adoptive mother, Mary Lou Barebone (Samantha Morton).
Colin Farrell as Percival Graves: A high-ranking Director of Magical Security with a secretive interest in the city's destruction. Production and Technical Details
Released in 2016, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a fantasy film that expanded J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World by exploring magical society in 1920s America. Directed by David Yates, it serves as a prequel to the Harry Potter series and introduces Eddie Redmayne as Newt Scamander. Plot and Setting
1926 New York City: The story follows British magizoologist Newt Scamander, who arrives in New York with a suitcase full of rare magical creatures. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them Released
The Incident: After a mishap involving a non-magical person (No-Maj) named Jacob Kowalski, several creatures escape, threatening to expose the hidden wizarding community to a city already tense with anti-magic extremism.
Darker Undertones: While Newt attempts to recover his beasts, he becomes entangled in a larger conflict involving the Magical Congress of the United States of America (MACUSA) and a destructive dark force known as an Obscurus. Critical and Commercial Success
Box Office: The film was a major commercial hit, grossing approximately $814 million worldwide. It was the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2016.
Accolades: It became the first film in the Wizarding World franchise to win an Academy Award, specifically for Best Costume Design. It also won a BAFTA for Best Production Design.
Reception: Critics generally praised the film for its world-building and charming performances, holding a 74% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Legacy and Sequels Box Office and Critical Reception Released on November
As the first of a planned five-part series, this film successfully established a new era of the franchise. It was followed by two sequels: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022) Main image for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
7. The Suitcase, the Swooping Evil, and the Rain of Obliviation
The film’s most ingenious magical solution comes in the third act. After the Obscurus wreaks havoc, Newt releases his Swooping Evil to fly through a rainstorm of Erumpent fluid mixed with the Swooping Evil’s venom. The mixture creates a magical memory wipe across New York.
It’s a risky, bizarre, and beautiful sequence. The rain erases only the memory of dark magic and beasts—not ordinary memories. This allows Newt to save the magical community from exposure without a mass memory charm (a limitation of Obliviate shown in earlier Potter films).
10. Legacy: Where Is the Franchise Now?
A decade later, Fantastic Beasts is a fractured franchise. The 2016 film was followed by The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) and The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022). The planned five-film arc stalled after mixed reviews and declining box office. As of 2025, Warner Bros. has not greenlit a fourth film.
Yet the original Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them holds up. It’s a self-contained, melancholy, beautifully weird mystery about a man who loves animals more than people. It gave us the Niffler (future theme park icon), the phrase “Obscurial,” and the most humane villain in the Wizarding World: the pain of a child forced to hide.
Box Office and Critical Reception
Released on November 18, 2016, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them opened to $74 million domestically and over $218 million worldwide in its first weekend. It went on to gross $814 million globally, earning an Academy Award for Best Costume Design and a BAFTA for Production Design. Critics lauded the visuals and Redmayne’s performance, though some found the pacing uneven. Rotten Tomatoes holds a 74% approval rating (based on 300+ reviews), with the consensus: “Fantastic Beasts delivers all the visual splendor a Harry Potter fan could want, but the new story’s characters lack the same magic.”