10 Fantasy Franchises Similar to Harry Potter

If you’ve just watched all eight movies in the Harry Potter franchise for the hundredth time and are looking for a new saga, I can’t recommend a journey through Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy enough. These remarkable adaptations of JRR Tolkien's legendary novels are widely regarded as some of the best blockbuster movies ever made — and I’m very much inclined to agree.

Set in a fantastical world of hobbits, elves and wizards, and featuring an epic showdown between the forces of good and evil — not to mention an iconic score by Howard Shore that will, much like HP, have you humming along to the tunes for years to come — this is easily the best place to go for any Hogwarts fanatic looking to branch out to another world. 

If you loved Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings and feel you could do with a little more Middle-earthian lore, there is plenty more where that came from. In 2012, Jackson followed up his LOTR movies with a slightly indulgent adaptation of The Hobbit — which is a slim book by comparison, but one that the director stretched out into a three-movie epic. But hey, if you love the world that Jackson and his team created, you will probably be perfectly happy to simply dip back in.  

Ian McKellen and Orlando Bloom reprise their roles as Gandalf and Legolas, but they're joined by a host of new characters, including Lee Pace as King Thranduil, Luke Evans as Bard, and Martin Freeman as Bilbo. Even Benedict Cumberbatch shows up to voice Smaug the dragon—so if you’re a big Sherlock or Doctor Strange fan, you’ll probably enjoy that, too.

If you loved diving deeper into the lore of Lord of the Rings with the Hobbit movies, the Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them trilogy might be the franchise add-on you’ve been looking for. These movies are to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter what The Hobbit is to LOTR — a story set decades before the main movies, and one in which the history and folk tales you’ve only heard talked about in the original movies are finally brought to life on screen.

This prequel series, which stars fan-favourite actors like Eddie Redmayne, Jude Law and Mads Mikkelson, dives into (amongst other things) Dumbledore’s past and his friendship-to-enemy relationship with Gellert Grindelwald.

If you're the kind of Harry Potter watcher who likes to save those movies for the chillier months of the year, you’re going to love the Twilight saga. This four-movie franchise, based on Stephanie Meyer's best-selling novels, is best enjoyed on a rainy Sunday in autumn, wrapped up on the couch with a cup of something warm and nothing else to do.

The story focuses on the unlikely love triangle between a high school girl named Bella (Kristen Stewart), a vampire named Edward (Robert Pattinson), and a werewolf named Jacob (Taylor Lautner). These are the movies that basically made Pattinson an A-list star, so if you liked his performance as Cedric Diggory in Goblet of Fire, for one, you’ll probably be keen to see him in this. 

If you like the distinctly English feel of Harry Potter, you might also be interested in checking out The Chronicles of Narnia trilogy: this includes The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. At the time of writing, Barbie director Greta Gerwig is currently in production on two new Narnia movies for Netflix, so it’s probably as good a time as any to revisit these earlier adaptations and brush up on the lore.

C.S. Lewis’s classic series of children's books focuses on the Pevensie siblings - Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy - who travel into the magical world of Narnia through a portal they find in their wardrobe. While there, they do battle against the White Witch (Tilda Swinton) while making friends with Mr Tumnus (James McAvoy), Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) and Aslan (Liam Neeson). Much like in Harry Potter, this magical world soon becomes their second home — it might soon become yours, too. 

Based on Rick Riordan’s novels, there are sadly only two Percy Jackson movies out there to enjoy — 2010’s The Lightning Thief and 2013’s Sea Of Monsters — but if you like HP for the way that it follows a young boy’s discovery of supernatural powers in a strange and magical world, you’ll probably enjoy this hero's quest, too. 

The series, which is loosely inspired by Greek mythology (certainly looser then movies like 300 or even Disney’s Hercules), follows Percy Jackson: a young demigod who lives in the 21st century amongst Greek gods and Titans. 

And while we're on the topic: if you like these movies, the more recent Percy Jackson series on Disney+ is even better.

If you tend to enjoy the later, more action-packed movies in the Harry Potter franchise (especially the Tri-Wizard Tournament in Goblet of Fire), The Hunger Games might be exactly what you’re looking for. Based on Suzanne Collins’ best-selling novels, this franchise has so far produced four movies and one prequel, with another on the way in 2026 — so if you like the idea of diving into a story that hasn’t already been fully told, this could be the perfect fit.

The first four movies, which go from The Hunger Games to Mockingjay - Part II, follow the rise of a revolutionary hero, Katniss Everdeen. The prequels then go back to show the history of some of those movies’ most prominent characters, good and bad.

If you enjoyed the comedic parts of Harry Potter and are after something a little more scientific, the Back To The Future movies might be just what you’re looking for. These are the kind of movies that I could recommend to anyone — especially fans of time travel capers like Avengers: Endgame or About Time. 

The series begins in 1985 before going back to 1955 in the first movie, then forward to 2015 in the second movie, and back again to 1885 for the third. In each, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) have to work together to get back to where they came from — ideally without messing up their timelines too much in the process. 

If you like the myths and legends of the Wizarding World, you’re probably going to love the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. This 5-movie series was originally based on a classic ride from Disney World, but it’s gone on to have a life of its own, growing exponentially to include some of the most famous myths and ghost stories of the Seven Seas. 

The action takes place in the early 1700s, otherwise known as The Golden Age of Piracy, and centres on the adventures of Jack Sparrow, an eccentric sea captain played, in an iconic performance, by Johnny Depp — and if you like Depp in movies like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, or enjoyed the recent HBO comedy, Our Flag Means Death, this one should be right up your alley.

Last but certainly not least, we come to Indiana Jones. Since 1981, this iconic movie character has been whipping and quipping his way through the jungles and deserts of the world, always on the hunt for some ancient, coveted artefact, and usually just a hair's breadth away from death — whether that be due to a pit of snakes, a patch of quicksand, or some deadly and evil foe.

If you come to Harry Potter for history and lore, you’re going to have all sorts of fun with these five incredible movies — and especially if you’re already a fan of Steven Spielberg’s work on classics like E.T., Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.