The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has many powerful witches and wizards, so here are the 20 most powerful sorcerers of them all. Writer J.K. Rowling launched the novel series of the same name back in 1997 and it wasn't long before they became a cultural phenomenon. Rowling sold the movie rights to her stories a year later, with Warner Bros. moving quickly to release the first installment, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, in 2001.

Warner Bros. used the Harry Potter name to create one of the most successful movie franchises of all-time. They made eight movies from the first book series and made over $7.7 billion at the box office. The popularity of the films launched the careers of Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson, while also making many of the characters some of the most iconic in cinema history. Between Harry Potter and the terrifying Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), they didn't just become even more well-known, but also showed just how powerful they were.

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In the latest Screen Rant video, we take a look at the 20 most powerful wizards and witches from the Harry Potter universe. The aforementioned chosen one and the one who shall not be named are easy choices to make the list, but they are just the beginning. Hermione Granger and Albus Dumbledore both showed their own power throughout the duration of the saga, but check out the full list in the video featured at the top of this post for the others.

With so many powerful characters, one of the most often discussed aspects of them is who is the most powerful. Thanks to the longevity of the Harry Potter franchise and the spectacle that it includes, the movies themselves have helped solve some of these debates. There's the obvious example of Harry being powerful enough to defeat Voldemort in the closing chapter of the franchise, but that was just the last of many great magical battles. We've seen Bellatrix Lestrange defeat Sirius Black and Molly Weasley kill Bellatrix, while Professor McGonagall fended off Snape.

Even though the main Harry Potter saga may have finished, some of these powerful wizards are being given the chance to be explored more in the Fantastic Beasts series. The most recent installment Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Gindelwald included a younger Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp) and a younger Dumbledore (Jude Law), and even a canon-breaking cameo by McGonagall. As this new franchise will continue for three more films, Rowling could add more of these characters to the story and further show what makes them some of the strongest wizards and witches to exist in the Harry Potter franchise.

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