John Williams composed the music for the first Harry Potter film based on J.K. Rowling’s novel.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, released in 2001, was directed by Chris Columbus and scored by Williams. His soundtrack introduced the series’ best-known musical idea, the “Hedwig’s Theme,” which became strongly associated with the wider Harry Potter identity even though Hedwig is Harry’s owl rather than the title character.
Williams also scored Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Other composers handled later installments, including Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper, and Alexandre Desplat. This division can cause confusion because the recurring musical language spans the entire film series, while Williams’s direct scoring work was concentrated in the first three movies.