Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film) film. Additionally, Moviefone designated the film as the tenth best of the decade. In 2011, the film was voted Film of the Decade at the First Light Awards by children aged 5–15. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a 2004 fantasy film directed by Alfonso Cuarón and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. It is based on J. K. Rowling's 1999 novel of the same name. The film, which is the third instalment in the "Harry Potter" film series, was written by Steve Kloves and produced by Chris Columbus (director of
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets seven books had been published, Graeme Davis regarded "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" as the weakest of the series, and agreed that the plot structure is much the same as in "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". He described Fawkes's appearance to arm Harry and then to heal him as a "deus ex machina": he said that the book does not explain how Fawkes knew where to find Harry; and Fawkes's timing had to be very precise, as arriving earlier would probably have prevented the battle with the basilisk, while arriving later would have been fatal to Harry