Every Unforgivable Curse Used In The Harry Potter Movies (& By Who)

The magic in the Wizarding World makes day-to-day tasks for witches and wizards a breeze. Once Harry Potter and his friends get to Hogwarts, they learn spells like Wingardium Leviosa, a charm that makes objects levitate, and Expelliarmus, which can disarm another wand-wielder. Of course, life in the Wizarding World isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, so there’s also a class called Defence Against the Dark Arts, where students learn how to stand up against the more dangerous magic they’ll come across outside of the school’s halls. The subject can’t keep a teacher to save its life, but it ends up being invaluable, preparing an entire generation of young people for the Second Wizarding War.

The conflict kicks off because Voldemort shows back up on the scene and sets his sights on Harry. Unlike last time, the Dark Lord doesn’t take any chances, giving his Death Eaters free rein to put down anyone who gets in their way using the Unforgivable Curses. Of course, the movies can’t use the taboo spells as much as the books do, but they still show up their fair share. Here’s every Unforgivable Curse used in the Harry Potter movies and who pulls the trigger.

8) The Death of the Potters

The entire Wizarding World knows of Harry because he’s “the Boy Who Lived,” the one who survived an attack from Voldemort when he was just a baby. His parents, James and Lily, weren’t so lucky, as they both lost their battles against the Dark Lord when he cast Avada Kedavra, better known as the Killing Curse. While the attack itself isn’t shown in full in the movies, we do get to see Lily’s death in a flashback as a cloaked Voldemort dispatches her with the iconic dark spell.

7) “Mad-Eye Moody” Shows Off The Curses

Despite having firsthand experience with the deadliest of the Unforgivable Curses, Harry doesn’t learn about them until his fourth year. Mad-Eye Moody comes to Hogwarts as the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and in a chillingly practical lesson, shows off all three of the curses on a poor, harmless whip scorpion. The strange moment becomes easier to stomach once it comes to light that Barty Crouch Jr. is posing as the famous Auror, but that’s no consolation to the scorpion.

6) Viktor Krum’s Nightmare

Viktor Krum finds himself on the wrong end of Imperio, the mind-control curse that has him enter a dream-like state where he doesn’t feel pain or emotion, during the Triwizard Tournament in The Goblet of Fire, becoming a pawn for the Death Eaters, who want Harry to reach the Portkey. While some wizards and witches are strong enough to break free of the curse’s control, Krum isn’t one of them.

5) Voldemort Gets His Revenge

Harry might have gotten the better of Voldemort when he was young, but the script is flipped in The Goblet of Fire. After the Portkey sends him to a graveyard, Harry finds himself face to face with the Dark Lord, who uses Crucio on him in a fit of rage. Harry’s already-awful night only gets worse from there.

4) Harry Tries To Cast Crucio

While Harry obviously isn’t Crouch Jr.’s biggest fan, he clearly took in the knowledge the villain bestowed upon him in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. After watching Sirius Black die, Harry goes after the person responsible, Bellatrix Lestrange, and tries his best to hurt her using Crucio. He knocks her down, but he’s not able to use the spell to its full potential, and is chastised because “you have to mean it” – feedback that arguably makes the spell worse.

3) Snape’s “Betrayal”

Speaking of Dumbledore’s death, Snape uses the Killing Curse on his boss in an attempt to gain Voldemort’s trust. However, what the Dark Lord doesn’t know is that Dumbledore asked Snape to kill him because he was already on death’s door. In reality, Snape performs a mercy killing that gets the Order of the Phoenix closer to victory.

2) Harry Does Whatever It Takes

Harry, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger have to push themselves to the limit to find the Horcruxes. When they believe that one is in Bellatrix’s possession, they head to Gringotts Wizarding Bank to enter her vault. The goblin that Hermione, posing as Bellatrix, interacts with, Bogrod, isn’t helping much, so Harry puts him under the Imperius Curse. It’s not one of Harry’s proudest moments, but he has no other choice. Ron then has to repeat the curse when it begins to wear off in the bowels of the bank.

1) Avada Kedavra Always Shows Up

While the Harry Potter movies don’t always highlight it, the Killing Curse shows up again and again. Here are all the notable instances of it being used in the movie franchise:

• Voldemort kills Frank Bryce in The Goblet of Fire
• Peter Pettigrew kills Cedric Diggory in The Goblet of Fire
• Bellatrix kills Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Voldemort kills Charity Burbage in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I
• A Death Eater kills Hedwig in The Deathly Hallows Part I
• Voldemort kills Mykew Gregorovitch in The Deathly Hallows Part I
• Voldemort kills the part of himself living inside of Harry in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II

The Harry Potter movies are streaming on Peacock.

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