This may not come as a huge surprise, but it turns out that the “Harry Potter” movies are remarkably popular. To clarify, despite the fact that the first movie based on J.K. Rowling’s best-selling books came out nearly 25 years ago, it remains a streaming juggernaut. To that end, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” aka “The Philosopher’s Stone” outside of the U.S., was one of the most popular streaming titles in 2024.
According to numbers provided by Digital-i, (via Deadline), “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” was viewed over 40 million times on the Max streaming service last year. Though not widely regarded as the best “Harry Potter” movie by any means, being first clear counts for a lot. Digging deeper into the numbers, director Christopher Columbus’ film reached nearly 20% of Warner Bros. Discovery’s total subscriber base, which is pretty remarkable.
These numbers, more specifically, were provided by Digital-i’s British streaming exports list for 2024. This list measures viewing from outside of the U.K. on Netflix, Disney, Prime Video, and Max in the U.S., as well as Japan, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Latin America, and Europe.
One could argue this is an example of so-called “newstalgia,” where something old becomes new again thanks to streaming. In any event, the numbers help to reaffirm that Rowling’s tale about a magical boy names Harry remains remarkably popular around the world. So many big movies and TV shows that cost millions upon millions to make regularly flame out on various streaming services. Yet, this 2001 feature is still pulling in huge numbers.