Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)
America, 1926: a young British magizoologist by the name of Newt Scamander arrives in the city of New York on his way to Arizona. As he makes his way through Manhattan, he pauses to listen to the ramblings of Mary Lou Barebone, the leader of a group known as the "Second Salemers" who claim that witches are real, living among them and posing a grave danger. While listening to her, something escapes from Scamander's suitcase: a Niffler, a mischievous creature with a perchant for swiping anything shiny. Worse still, Barebone is ranting on the front steps of a bank, where the Niffler swipes at gold and coins.While Scamander manages to catch it, he ends up being witnessed by a No-Maj (the American term for Muggles) named Jacob Kowalski, a cannery worker who came to the bank in the hopes of taking out a loan to open his own bakery. When Scamander tries to wipe his memories of his chasing the Niffler and using magic, Kowalski escapes. Shortly afterward, Scamander is apprehended by Tina Goldstein, an employee of the Magical Congress of the United States of America, who take the secrecy of the magical world very seriously, to the extent where contact between wizards and No-Majes is heavily regulated, if not outright prohibited. With Scamander in her custody, Goldstein, who had been demoted from her post as an Auror, tries to have Scamander arrested for his having let a magical creature loose and allowing a No-Maj to witness it.Unfortunately, the only proof, the suitcase that Scamander keeps magical creatures in, wound up getting swapped with a No-Maj's briefcase filled with various pastries. As Scamander is released, Jacob, downtrodden by his inability to get a loan for lack of collateral, had accidentally taken Scamander's suitcase and accidentally releases some of the creatures contained therein, getting bit by one such creature as the others run amok in Manhattan.Scamander and Goldstein make their way to Jacob's apartment, which had been destroyed by some of the magical creatures that escaped. Scamander manages to capture the one that had attacked Jacob. After repairing the apartment, Tina takes Scamander and Jacob to her apartment, so they can observe the No-Maj to monitor his health. There, Scamander and Jacob meet Queenie, Tina's sister, whom Jacob takes a shine to.That night, while pretending to sleep, Scamander invites Jacob into his briefcase while he tended to the creatures contained therein, introducing Jacob to a world of magic the likes of which he could never imagine. Therein, Jacob discovers Scamander's reason for coming to America: he had rescued a Thunderbird from an illegal trading ring in Egypt and came to release it back in its habitat in Arizona. In the meantime, he enlists Jacob's aid in re-capturing the creatures that had escaped. Together, they manage to recapture a female Erumpent in heat.While Scamander and Jacob are inside the briefcase after capturing the Erumpent, Tina captures the briefcase and brings it to the MACUSA office. With Scamander and Jacob now in the custody of the MACUSA, they learn that the wizarding world is in a crisis: one creature has killed a No-Maj senator, placing the secrecy of wizards in jeopardy. Scamander, upon seeing the body, recognizes the damage done to it as the work of an Obscurus, a destructive parasitic mass of magical energy that is created from children who repress their magical abilities, often killing the child in the process. Scamander had extracted an Obscurus from a child who had died and kept it in his suitcase in a protective barrier. When Percival Graves, a high-ranking Auror in the MACUSA, discovers Newt's Obscurus, he accuses him of conspiring with Gellert Grindelwald, an extremely dangerous wizard criminal who aimed to reveal the existence of wizards and conquer the world of No-Majes. As such, Graves orders Scamander and Goldstein to be executed immediately.Thankfully, the two manage to escape while Queenie saves Jacob from having his memories wiped. Together, they manage to re-capture the last two creatures that escaped Scamander's briefcase: an Occamy and a Demiguise.Unbeknownst to them, and the MACUSA, Graves was conspiring with a young man named Credence, one of the children adopted by Barebones and the one most often abused by his mother, to find the Obscurus that was loose in the city for his own ends. He initially believes the Obscurus to be one of Credence's siblings. He soon discovers that the true Obscurus was Credence, himself: originally thought to be a Squib (one born to magical parents but lacking the ability to use magic, themselves), he had survived to adolescence in spite of having repressed his magical powers well past the point where doing so would kill any other child, and his Obscurus was thus extremely destructive.Credence reaches his limit and unleashes his Obscurus, carving a swath of destruction through Manhattan and drawing attention from the No-Majes to the existence of magic! Credence, now in the form of a mass of uncontrollable magical energy, hides in a subway tunnel. Scamander goes after him and tries to talk him down. He is joined by Tina, who had known Credence previously and had attacked her mother when she witnessed her abusing him (costing her commission as an Auror in the process). Before they can talk him down, however, the American Aurors arrive and, having determined Credence to be too dangerous, destroy him.Graves becomes upset at the Aurors destroying Credence, having meant to use him to expose the existence of wizards to the No-Majes, claiming that the MACUSA's laws concerning their secrecy was for the benefit of No-Majes. He attacks the Aurors, but Scamander manages to subdue him. He uses a spell on Graves to remove his disguise, revealing his true identity to be none other than Gellert Grindelwald himself!As Grindelwald is taken into custody, concerns linger of the wizarding world being exposed to No-Majes. Scamander, however, has a solution: he releases his Thunderbird in Manhattan with a special potion that mixes with a rainstorm that the Thunderbird creates, erasing all of the New York No-Majes' memories of the events that transpired while Aurors repaired the damage inflicted upon the city. Unfortunately, Jacob must have his memories erased as well, as per MACUSA law. Scamander, Tina, and Queenie say their farewells to Jacob before he steps into the rain, Queenie, who had mutual feelings for Jacob, kissing him before the three wizards leave.Having completed what he set out to do, Scamander says his farewells to Tina (who had been reinstated as Auror), but promises to return to hand-deliver her a book based on the manuscripts he wrote about the creatures under his care, titled Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Before he departs for Europe, however, he leaves Jacob with a briefcase filled with highly valuable Occamy egg shells. With those shells, Jacob is finally able to secure funding for his bakery, where he reunites with Queenie.Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018)
The film picks up about six months after the first one with Grindelwald escaping his transport from prison in America to his trial Europe. However, the man they believed to be Grindelwald was actually Queenie's boss Abernathy whom he'd swayed to his side and swapped places with. Grindelwald saves Abernathy and heads off to Europe. After another time skip of about three months, we find Newt has published his book in the interim. When we first see him, he's at the Ministry of Magic for a meeting to get his passport reinstated when he runs into his old friend Leta Lestrange. Leta's engaged to his brother Theseus, the head Auror. Theseus asks Newt to keep an open mind and watch his tongue in order to get his passport back. In the meeting, the Ministry officials tell him that Credence survived the first film and that he's in an unknown location in continental Europe. They offer him his passport back if he'll go to work for his brother and join the hunt for Credence which Newt flatly refuses. Theseus runs after Newt and tells him to be careful because the various Ministries don't believe his reason for being in New York and that he's being surveilled. After the meeting, Newt meets Dumbledore whom we find out was the friend that tipped Newt off about the abused Thunderbird. He tells Newt that he's always had a predilection for magical birds due to a family story about phoenixes and that's why he got in touch with Newt. Newt doesn't buy it for a second and presses him on the fact that he knew Grindelwald was in New York and he knew Newt would have to travel through the harbor to get Frank to Arizona. Dumbledore acquiesces and tells Newt that Grindelwald, a seer, had had a vision many years ago of using an obscurial to kill him. Dumbledore says he can't fight Grindelwald but he wants Newt to go to Paris to find Credence, whom he believes can be cured of the obscurus if he finds his real family. He reiterates the rumor that Credence is actually Leta's half-brother Corvus V who was long believed to be dead. Newt refuses to go since he doesn't have a passport.Newt is working in his home with his assistant Bunty when he finds Queenie and Jacob at his doorstep. Queenie tells him they've kept their relationship in the interim, she and Tina are fighting over it, and that they've come to Europe to get married. She also tells him that Tina is dating someone else because she read an incorrect article about his book release that said he was engaged to his old friend Leta Lestrange when in fact it's his brother Theseus who's engaged to her. Newt realizes that something is off with Jacob. Queenie had bewitched him into coming to the UK to get married. Newt undoes the curse and Queenie and Jacob have a fight that ends with Queenie going off to find Tina who's in Paris on (what Queenie believes) an official assignment in Paris. After Newt learns that she's in Paris, he agrees to go and he and Jacob take an illegal portkey across the channel to find them. Grindelwald is also in Paris trying to find Credence with his minions in tow. They kill a Muggle family and use their apartment as a makeshift base.
In Paris, Credence is working at circus with his friend Nagini (who at this point is still able to control her transformation into a snake) and the two of them have been trying to find his birth mother. When they think they've found her in a woman named Irma Dugard, they escape. Irma tells him that she wasn't his mother but rather a servant and right as she's about to tell him more about his family, she's killed by one of Grindelwald's minions. Tina, who was at the circus the night they escaped and wasn't there on official business, meets a man there named Yusuf Kama who is also hunting Credence. Newt and Jacob use Yusuf to track Tina, who's been imprisoned by him in the meantime. When they catch up to Yusuf and Tina, Yusuf imprisons them as well and explains that he'd made an unbreakable vow with his father to kill Creedence, whom he also believes to be Corvus V. Queenie gets to the French Ministry in hopes of finding Tina but since she wasn't there working for the Ministry, she is unable to find her. She leaves the Ministry distraught and gets overwhelmed trying to find Jacob's thoughts in a crowd of French speakers whose thoughts she can't understands. She begins sobbing in the street and is quickly helped by a seemingly kind woman who offers to take her home for a cup of tea and to get out of the rain. Once Queenie has calmed down, she realizes the kind woman wasn't helping her for altruistic reasons. She's Grindelwald's right hand woman, Vinda Rosier, and has broguht her to the apartment to recruit her to their cause. Grindelwald comes out and gives Queenie his "greater good" spiel before he lets her go.
Back in the UK, the a group from the ministry (including Theseus and Leta) barges into Dumbledore's class demanding that he fight Grindelwald. When Dumbledore says he can't do that, Theseus' boss Torquil Travers puts him on house arrest and bans him from teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts. Dumbledore warns Travers that fighting Grindelwald's violence with violence is giving him what he wants but he doesn't listen. Once Travers storms out, he tells Theseus that if he trust him, to not rise to his rhetoric. Theseus does take the advice to heart. Dumbledore finds Leta in an old classroom, the two of them talk about the death of their siblings and he asks her if she wants to confess anything but she refuses. He also tells her that she's a good person no matter what she thinks and that she needs to learn to forgive herself for whatever happened.
Newt and Tina infiltrate the French Ministry of Magic for documents to confirm Credence's identity, but are discovered by Leta and Theseus. Tina and Newt clear the air about the misunderstanding with the magazine and they bump into Leta who's also there looking for the documents. They find out the documents are in the family tomb and when the three of them get there, they collide with Yusuf, Credence, and Nagini. Yusuf says that he's sorry he has to do it but he must kill Credence because his Corvus IV imperius-ed his mother into marrying him, got her pregnant, and then she died giving birth to Leta, his half-sister. Kama Sr swore his son to get revenge on Corvus V for this. Leta stops him and says that Credence isn't Corvus because Corvus had for sure died as a baby because she killed him. She explains that when her father found out about the vow, he sent them to America with Irma so Corvus could be adopted by Mrs Barebone. Corvus wouldn't stop crying on the ship so she swapped him with baby Credence next door who was quiet. She never told anyone when the ship sank and Credence' aunt died trying to save Corvus while she sat in the lifeboat holding Credence.
They go to the rally where Queenie is among the attendees and Jacob is looking for her. Grindelwald shows a vision of a future global war, and rails against the laws prohibiting them from preventing such a tragedy. Theseus and the Auror show up at the rally and even though he's trying to take Dumbledore's advice, a twitchy member of the squad gets goaded into killing an attendee. Grindelwald prompts his followers to spread his message across Europe, and conjures a ring of blue fire that kills the retreating Aurors and that only his most loyal followers can safely cross. Queenie and Credence cross the fire, while Leta sacrifices herself (while telling Newt and Theseus that she loves them) so the others can escape. As Grindelwald and his followers depart, the remaining wizards and immortal alchemist Nicolas Flamel extinguish the fire. Newt hugs a distraught Theseus and tells him he's ready to join the fight.
Newt, Tina, Yusuf, Nagini, and the Aurors go back to Hogwarts so Newt can talk privately to Dumbledore, whom Theseus lets off house arrest. Newt gives him a pendant containing a blood pact stolen by the niffler that Grindelwald and Dumbledore made in their youth that prevents them dueling each other; Dumbledore believes it can be destroyed. At Nurmengard Castle, his Austrian base, Grindelwald presents Credence with a wand. He tells him his alleged birth name, Aurelius Dumbledore, and gives him a phoenix while saying his "brother" is trying to kill him.
