5 Harry Potter Movie Mistakes The HBO TV Series Could Finally Fix

Although the eight "Harry Potter" movies were remarkable, they weren't perfect. The child actors struggled at times, and the revolving door of directors caused a lot of visual inconsistency. The biggest issue, most fans would agree, is how the movies struggled to adapt the increasingly long and complicated source material. "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," for instance, is well over 800 pages in most editions. While the movies could adapt the 300-page first book faithfully without much of a struggle, figuring out how to streamline 800 pages seemed to be a massive headache for the writers.

Most of the mistakes featured on this list are related to the movies' time constraints. The upcoming HBO "Harry Potter" series enjoys all the breathing room that comes with the medium of TV, which means it can include so many of the fun subplots and complicated lore that made the books shine. Minor characters like Charlie Weasley who were cut from the movies have already been cast, which is promising news for book fans. Here are five things the "Harry Potter" show can do that the movies didn't.

A popular complaint from book fans is that the movies do Ron (Rupert Grint) dirty. From "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" onward, it seems clear that Hermione (Emma Watson) is the script's favorite. She has most of her rougher edges sanded down. Gone is the bookish, overbearing girl fans loved in the books, replaced with a perpetually competent cool girl with only the occasional neurotic moment.

In the books, Ron is a valuable member of the trio thanks to his native knowledge of the wizarding world, but most of those moments are cut from the movies. Book Ron is the only one who knows what the slur "mudblood" means, for instance, whereas Hermione is already in the know in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets." Ron's bravery is also downplayed; in the "Prisoner of Azkaban" book, it's a bruised-up Ron who tells Sirius, "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us too!" The movie adaptation gives Hermione the line instead.

Ron's worst movie in the series is "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire," which has enough screen time to cover Ron's fight with Harry and his fight with Hermione, but not enough to cover his more redemptive moments. To movie-only viewers, Ron in "Goblet of Fire" comes across as a huge jerk for most of the run-time; a TV show can give him more nuance.

Although "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" is often lauded as the best of the movies, it is ground zero for a lot of book fans' complaints about the series overall. In addition to establishing Hermione as more important than Ron, "Prisoner of Azkaban" glosses over a ton of backstory about the Marauders.

The Marauders were the friend group that Harry's father James formed as a kid with Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. The information revealed about them in the third book continues to be important throughout the next four novels; because the movie omits that information, however, the later movies seemed to have little choice but to continue omitting details about the Marauders.

Meanwhile, the HBO series can explore the Marauders' past as much as it wants. In fact, it could even dedicate an entire episode to a flashback around James' Hogwarts days, and fans likely wouldn't complain. Life at Hogwarts during the Marauders' time remains one of the most fascinating periods of the "Harry Potter" lore, and it'd be a shame if the show doesn't delve into it.

Neville Longbottom (Matthew Lewis) is given plenty of fun moments in the films, but he's still sidelined compared to his book counterpart. The most obvious example comes early into the first film: In the book "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone," Neville accompanies the main trio during their nighttime trip through the castle where they stumble across Fluffy the three-headed dog. In the movie, Neville's cut from that whole sequence.

The rest of the movies make sure to give Neville a few stand-out scenes, but they still cut plenty of key moments. The big one comes in "Order of the Phoenix." In the book, the trio meets Neville's parents at St. Mungo's Hospital — both of whom have been tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange and other Death Eaters.

This is a huge part of Neville's backstory, but movie-only viewers likely never even pieced together that it happened. The movies may obliquely reference Neville's dark connection to Bellatrix, but they never linger on it for more than a few seconds. A TV show, however, would have more than enough time to give this storyline its due.

The film adaptation of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is far and away the least faithful in the series. The movie cuts a ton of material, the most glaring of which are the many flashbacks to Tom Riddle's troublesome past before rising as Lord Voldemort.

While some of these omissions can be explained away by pacing and time concerns, even the few scenes we get of Riddle in the film feel unfaithful. Young Riddle is supposed to be someone who can mask his evil nature through his charm, but young Riddle in the movie is openly creepy. It's hard to square the "Half-Blood Prince" portrayal of the character with the (far more accurate) portrayal offered in "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets."

If the HBO series reaches Season 6 (it's already been renewed for Season 2), it will hopefully have the time to show all of Riddle's flashbacks, as well as the wisdom to portray them accurately. After over 15 years of fans complaining about the "Half-Blood Prince" movie changes, perhaps the show's writers will take a different approach.

One odd adaptive choice the final film makes is having its villains inexplicably explode into dust when they die. First it happens to Bellatrix Lestrange (a character who topples over dead in the novel) and then at the very end, it happens to Voldemort.

In the "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" book, Voldemort simply falls to the ground like a regular person, and his body has to be taken away and buried as normal. The book calls attention to the idea that Voldemort, for all his plans of being an immortal being, is just a man in the end. That's why it feels like a strange choice for the movies to remove all of that, giving Voldemort the larger-than-life ending he'd have preferred.

If the "Harry Potter" TV series makes it all the way to Season 7, hopefully they give Voldemort his book-accurate death scene. And while they're at it, they should make sure Harry fixes his regular wand before snapping the Elder Wand in half. That last one is a minor complaint, but it's been bugging fans for 15 years now.

The "Harry Potter" series premieres on HBO on December 25, 2026, and releases weekly for the rest of its eight-episode first season.