Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (film)

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is a 2016 fantasy film directed by David Yates and written by J. K. Rowling in her debut as a screenwriter. It is the first instalment in the Fantastic Beasts film series and the ninth overall in the Wizarding World franchise, serving as a spin-off of and prequel to the Harry Potter film series. Newt Scamander's guide book of the same name—written by Rowling under the pen name in 2001 for the charity Comic Relief—inspired the film. It features an ensemble cast including Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Carmen Ejogo, Ron Perlman, and Colin Farrell.

Filming took place from August 2015 to January 2016, at Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden, and also on location in England, with a $175–200 million budget. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them premiered at Alice Tully Hall in New York City on 10 November 2016, and was released in cinemas in the US and UK on 18 November, by Warner Bros. Pictures. It received generally positive reviews from critics and emerged a commercial success, grossing $814 million worldwide, finishing its theatrical run as the eighth-highest-grossing film of 2016. The film was nominated for five British Academy Film Awards, including Best British Film, and won for Best Production Design. It was nominated for two Academy Awards and won for Best Costume Design, becoming the first Wizarding World film to win an Academy Award. Two sequels—Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) and Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore (2022)—have been released.