Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is also a Christmas classic.

Although when we talk about Christmas movies I'm sure that Harry Potter is not one of the first things that comes to mind, it is undeniable that both The Secret Chamber and The Sorcerer Stone have a particular flavor that we usually find in holiday films, an indirect consequence perhaps of the participation of Chris Columbus in the direction of both works (Let's remember that this man was behind Home Alone I and II, The Gremlins Christmas With the Kranks).

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I am not the biggest fan of the franchise created by J.K Rowling, but my few experiences with it (and with the film adaptations that were created about it) have always been pleasant. The idea of following a group of young wizards as we see them deal with their respective childhoods/adolescences seems fascinating to me and without a doubt this magical world is full of interesting details that, even if we are no longer children capable of feeling ambition to exist there, we can allow ourselves to connect emotionally with everything we are seeing.

A couple of years ago I decided to binge-watch the entire film series with my younger brother, and while I agree with most of the harsher criticisms it has received (especially when it comes to inconsistencies between the way the universe works as well as a couple of narrative glitches), if there's one thing I have to highlight it's the ability of the first part "The Sorcerer Stone" to immerse us in the wizarding world, Hogwarts, and all the characters that would accompany us for more than a decade.

It's incredible that they got so many things right from the start, starting from the casting decisions of the entire primary and secondary cast (Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint are miraculously close representations of their written counterparts), to the clever planting of many narrative seeds that would be taken advantage of later on.

However, if I had to single out one aspect of The Sorcerer's Stone that for me elevates this film to another level, I would say that it is precisely its ability to function in isolation, while at the same time exciting us for the possibilities that this story will bring in the future.

Within all the chapters within Harry Potter, this is probably the closest to the traditional hero's journey, a narrative scheme that has been replicated hundreds of times in modern popular culture, but that will always be effective when the creative minds behind the project know how to harmonize all the aspects of the work.

So despite not having the dark and mature atmosphere that the following Harry Potter films have accustomed us to (like Prisoner of Azkaban, another of my favorites), Sorcerer's Stone is a film that feels extremely comfortable with its own nature, it is visually beautiful, nostalgic, and knows how to mix very well the innocence of childhood with the terror of the unknown.

This score was taken from my Letterboxd account.