Best Harry Potter books

546 duels later, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban holds the top spot in the Harry Potter ranking with 1377 ELO points, ahead of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

A 67-point gap separates first from second place, as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban wins 67% of its duels against Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire's 60%. The podium reveals a clear hierarchy: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sits at third with 1276 ELO points, while the final two books in the main series occupy fourth and fifth positions. The bottom of the ranking tells its own story. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child languishes at rank 8 with just 774 ELO points and a 4% win rate across 82 duels. Meanwhile, the first two books in the series cluster near the bottom with 1193 and 1191 ELO points respectively, suggesting readers favor the darker, more complex middle installments over the franchise's origins.

This ranking draws on 546 duels contributed by 31 players across 8 contenders, updated 12 October 2026. Each duel pits two titles against each other, and every choice shifts the ELO scores that determine these positions. The gap between Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and its nearest rival shows how decisively the community has spoken, but rankings shift with every vote. Head to the Harry Potter TopList to cast your own duels and influence which book rises or falls next.

Updated on October 12, 2026

How this ranking is computed

Every duel won lifts a contender and every loss drops them, by an amount that depends on the opponent's strength: beating the leader is worth more than beating the last. It is an ELO, the same principle as in chess. Duels are not drawn at random — an adaptive entropy sort puts the least predictable match-ups first, which settles the ranking far faster than a full round robin. A worldwide ranking is only published past 30 completed plays. Known limit: a contender who has faced few opponents keeps an approximate score, and the bottom of the table moves more than the podium.

How our rankings are made →