Harry Potter Movie Marathon Weekend

We are huge Harry Potter fans. Sure we don’t get to Universal Studios for the Wizarding World of Harry Potter as much as we’d like, but we LOVE Harry Potter. We love the films, the books, the decor, the magic. We love Wizard Chess and Butterbeer. If it’s Harry Potter-related, we love it. So every year my daughter and I have a Harry Potter Movie Marathon Weekend to celebrate. Complete with crafts, decorations, all 8 movies…and Harry Potter snacks and food we love. If you’re ready for a Harry Potter Weekend, lets get started.

Harry Potter Movie Marathon Weekend

We usually hold our Harry Potter Movie Marathon in February, because in Ohio, that’s really the point we start getting sick of winter and need something to look forward to. So we make a plan. Harry Potter wizard chess, a Butterbeer Recipe, Butterbeer Pancakes, photo backdrops, and a plan to stay in for the weekend. A Harry Potter Marathon Weekend is one of our favorite things to do during the winter. So, if you’re looking for a fun-themed weekend and ways to bring a little magic home, get ready for lots of movie-watching. And when you’re done you can break out the Harry Potter Trivia to see how much of the films you memorized!

How long does a Harry Potter Movie Marathon Take?

About 20 hours. Or rather, 19 hours and 40 minutes to be exact, if you’re watching them on the DVDs and not doing any extra features. Of course, you can break up the watching over a couple of days or try it all at once.

During our Harry Potter Movie Marathon, we watch ALL of the Harry Potter Movies. We start at the beginning and we watch them all the way through. Generally, we start in the morning and stay up as late as we possibly can and then pick up where we left off the next morning. We own the box set, but you can also buy them in a digital format too if that’s your preference.

Harry Potter Marathon Movies

For our Harry Potter Weekend, we stick to the original 8 Harry Potter Films. While there are loads of additional Harry Potter things to watch, like special features, featurettes, etc. we don’t add those in. Eventually, we may add the Fantastic Beasts series to this movie marathon, but for now, it is just Harry Potter movies. Check out the Harry Potter Movie Marathon Web Story for a quick glimpse of everything we cover in this post!

What are all the Harry Potter Movies?

There are eight Harry Potter films and seven Harry Potter Books. If you’ve read these masterpieces of literature you know that each one has a hefty page count. And as the last book serves up the resolution for the entire series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was split into 2 films.

Sorcerer’s Stone
Chamber of Secrets
Prisoner of Azkaban
Goblet of Fire
Order of the Phoenix
Half-Blood Prince
Deathly Hallows Part 1
Deathly Hallows Part 2

Where can you watch all the Harry Potter Movies?

You can watch all the Harry Potter Movies on Max, previously HBO Max, or Peacock. Both currently offer Harry Potter on their streaming platforms. If you’re looking for additional streaming options, you may be out of luck. Unfortunately, Harry Potter is not on Netflix or Disney Plus. And we haven’t found any of the Harry Potter Movies Streaming for free. However, you can grab the entire 8-film Harry Potter Collection Digital Copy on Amazon Prime so that you have all your Harry Potter Movies with you, at all times. Or, you can go old-school, like us, with a tried and true set of the Harry Potter Complete Collection on Blu-Ray DVD. And of course, if you’re looking to save some money, just head to your local public Library and rent the Harry Potter Movie Series DVDs for free.

When Should You Do a Harry Potter Movie Marathon Weekend?

While you can plan to watch all 8 Harry Potter films any time of year, we love it most in the winter months, when it’s dreary and we need a little magic. But of course, you can watch it any time you want! Harry Potter Day, on May 2nd, is a great time to host your own Harry Potter Movie Marathon. Or you can kick off the Back to Hogwarts season with a Harry Potter Movie Night on September 1st.

Harry Potter Movie Marathon Food and Snacks

Let’s face it, you can’t go almost 20 hours watching films, without eating. As such, we always have a lineup of themed food at the ready! And every year we like to change up what we have for food during our Harry Potter Movie Weekend.

We have a few staples that we always have and one of those things is butterbeer. Butterbeer is a must for us. We love it hot, we love it cold, iced, in the form of a latte. You name it, we love it. Over the years we’ve tried our fair share of Butterbeer recipes and we think we’ve finally found some of our favorites. We created a butterbeer pancake recipe, perfect for the start of the movie marathon! We also included a hot Butterbeer recipe in this post.

While our meals always include some kind of Harry Potter-themed or British food, I was really lucky to be gifted The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook from my friend Susan at Christmas last year. Of course, this was a perfect reason to try out some of the recipes! With everything from Treacle Tart to Peppermint Humbugs, there is plenty to choose from!

Recipes from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook

We were able to try the Pumpkin Juice from this cookbook, which I highly recommend because it’s so nice and refreshing; and quite honestly is a great little break from all the sweetness of the butterbeer. Just make a big batch to enjoy it all weekend. We also tried our hand at the Pumpkin Pasties, which were super easy and a great breakfast pastry without being too sweet.

And to add to our cozy winter weekend Harry Potter Movie Marathon, we tried the Cottage Pie too. It is essentially like Shepherd’s Pie but with ground beef. This was great for dinner during our Harry Potter Marathon and was especially nice since our movie marathon weekend just happened to be during a cold and rainy one. Also in the cookbook, was a great recipe for Bangers and Mash, which is so quintessentially English, we just had to try it. Truthfully you could probably plan any meal with a British theme and it would work. And while this Harry Potter Cookbook didn’t really have any pictures, there were plenty of easy recipes to fill the weekend. So cozy and comforting!

Harry Potter Butterbeer Recipes

Aside from the foods we tried in the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, we also tried a recipe for Butterbeer Pancakes which were absolutely amazing. We actually pulled together all the details of How to Make Butterbeer Pancakes at Home, and it’s so much easier than you think! We also couldn’t help but try our hand at some Snitch Truffles! These are actually a lot easier than they look, but we basically used this Oreo Truffle recipe and brushed them with edible gold dust. And then we just needed a bit of white chocolate to add little wings.

If you’ve never made chocolate-shaped pieces before, simply put cooled melted chocolate in a pastry bag with a tip, and make your chocolate decoration on a piece of wax paper, or on something where it won’t stick, like a Silpat mat. Once the chocolate dries, you can just lift it off the paper and stick it to your snitch. Voila! Not that difficult and we loved the end result. As you can see, a lot of our Harry Potter Movie Marathon revolves around food, but we kind of love a good theme especially when it involves food; so we are totally fine with it.

Harry Potter Movie Marathon Photo Backdrops

Aside from food, we also love to incorporate some fun-themed photo ops! We created a super easy wall to take pictures in front of and bought some fun photo props from Amazon. We also created house banners and a platform 9 – 3/4 using a brick backdrop and a quick and easy cutout.

Harry Potter Weekend Games

Aside from watching Harry Potter during our movie marathon weekend, we also love incorporating other fun Harry Potter things into the mix. After watching the movies (or reading the books!) we always love a good game of Harry Potter trivia. I’ll admit, my daughter usually wins, but it’s always fun for me to try to challenge her knowledge! You’ll likely fare a bit better if you have read the books since some of the trivial knowledge is based on the books, but if you’ve seen all of the movies, you still have a pretty good chance with this one!

We are also huge fans of a grueling game of Wizard’s Chess. While the chess pieces may not be life-size like we see in the movies, and thankfully so, they’re still pretty cool and this is always a game we look forward to.

Even More Harry Potter to Watch

If you’re a committed Harry Potter fan, you can also add even more Harry Potter to your Harry Potter Movie Marathon weekend. There’s a Harry Potter 20th Anniversary Return to Hogwarts Special that gets you behind the scenes and shares cast interviews that are absolutely worth the watch. The Blu-Ray even comes with a digital version you can load onto wherever you store your digital films.

And then of course, like we said before the Fantastic Beasts Series is also a great addition! Fantastic Beasts is also on Max to stream, or you can grab it on Amazon Prime. The Fantastic Beasts Film Collection includes 3 films. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Fantastic Beasts and the Crimes of Grindelwald, and Fantastic Beasts The Secrets of Dumbledore.