John Williams composed the music for the first Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.
Released in 2001, the film was directed by Chris Columbus and adapted from Rowling’s first novel. Williams wrote the score, including “Hedwig’s Theme,” whose recognizable opening became closely associated with the Harry Potter film series.
Williams also composed the scores for the second and third Harry Potter films. Later installments used music by composers including Patrick Doyle, Nicholas Hooper, and Alexandre Desplat, so John Williams did not score the entire film series.
The theme is often casually called the Harry Potter theme, but its formal title is “Hedwig’s Theme.” It remains one of the strongest musical identifiers of the franchise and appears in arrangements across later films and related media.