Sirius Black: Harry Potter's Godfather, Played by Gary Oldman

Sirius Black is the man Harry Potter first fears and then discovers to be his godfather, a wizard who escapes Azkaban prison and is believed to be hunting the boy he is secretly trying to protect. In the films he is credited as Sirius Black.

Gary Oldman plays him in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), directed by Alfonso Cuarón, and again in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), directed by David Yates. Oldman is billed sixth in the first film and seventh in the second, so Black is a supporting lead and not a background figure.

What makes the character unusual is the gap between his reputation and his history. Harry is told that Black helped Voldemort kill his parents, yet Black was in fact his parents' friend. He is also an Animagus, meaning a wizard who can turn into an animal at will. His form is a large black dog, which is the shape Harry glimpses before the truth comes out.

Black belongs to the main Harry Potter films and not to the Fantastic Beasts spin-offs. If you want to see where his two appearances fall, the Harry Potter movies in order guide lays them out, and you can browse every other Harry Potter character from the main list.

Sirius Black's story runs from hunted fugitive to condemned prisoner to rescued godfather, and it ends in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth film.

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry is told that Black has broken out of Azkaban and is thought to be coming for him. The Dementors posted around Hogwarts make Harry's year miserable, and he learns, partly through the Marauder's Map he received from Fred and George, that Black was once his parents' friend and is accused of betraying them. On the night Buckbeak the hippogriff is due to be executed, a large black dog drags Ron into a tunnel under the Whomping Willow, and Harry and Hermione follow.

The dog is Black, and he explains that the real traitor is Peter Pettigrew, who has spent years hiding as Ron's pet rat, Scabbers. Remus Lupin joins them, but the full moon turns him into a werewolf and Pettigrew slips away in the chaos. Black is then captured and condemned to the Dementor's Kiss. Harry and Hermione use her Time-Turner to go back, free Buckbeak and help Black escape on the hippogriff. Just before the credits, Black sends Harry a Firebolt broom.

In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, set in 1995, the Ministry of Magic denies that Voldemort has returned. Harry sees a vision of Sirius in danger and travels with his friends to the Ministry. Death Eaters ambush the group there, and Sirius is killed by Bellatrix Lestrange.

His surname stays in the story afterward. In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1, the trio work out that a locket stolen by Regulus Black is a Horcrux.

Sirius Black's closest tie is to Harry, whose godfather he is, and the films define most of his other relationships by who betrayed him and who stood by him.

Harry is the center of it. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the boy gets a real chance at a family connection once he knows his godfather is innocent, and the Firebolt sent at the end is Black's gift to him. By Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry is willing to cross to the Ministry of Magic on the strength of a vision of Sirius in danger, which shows how far that bond has grown.

Remus Lupin is the friend who arrives at the tunnel under the Whomping Willow and joins Black as they confront Pettigrew. Lupin changes under the full moon that same night. Peter Pettigrew is the opposite, the supposed friend who hid for years as Scabbers while Black took the blame. Ron is drawn in because the rat belongs to him, and Black's dog form is first seen pulling him down the tunnel.

Bellatrix Lestrange is his enemy at the end. She escapes from Azkaban during Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and is the one who kills him. Dumbledore plays a quieter part, since he hints to Harry and Hermione that the night can be changed with the Time-Turner.

Regulus Black appears in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 as the person who stole the locket Horcrux, and he shares Sirius's surname. The films do not stage a scene between the two.

Sirius Black dies in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), struck down by his cousin's rival in the Death Eater ranks, Bellatrix Lestrange, during the 1995 battle inside the Ministry of Magic.

The chain of events starts with a false alarm for Harry: he is shown Sirius in danger, and he rushes to London with his friends, only to find himself hunting for a prophecy in a hall of glass spheres. Voldemort's followers are already waiting. Bellatrix, who had escaped from Azkaban earlier in the film, is the one who ends Sirius's life.

The aftermath is short and, in my reading, deliberately spare. Voldemort fights Dumbledore, takes hold of Harry for a moment and then retreats, and Minister Fudge has no choice but to admit that the Dark Lord is back. Harry is left grieving, and the film closes on the idea that his friends will not leave his side.

The death matters to the larger story because it removes the one adult who had just become a real family connection for Harry, at the very moment the wizarding world stops denying the threat. Sirius does not return after this. Only his surname survives, through Regulus Black and the stolen locket in the Deathly Hallows films.

In my opinion, Sirius Black is at his best in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, where the film makes the audience fear him before it lets them love him.

The strongest scene is the reveal in the tunnel under the Whomping Willow. The large black dog drags Ron away, Harry and Hermione chase it, and the dog becomes a man who says the real traitor is Pettigrew. It works because Cuarón holds back the explanation until the film has spent its first hour building dread around the name Sirius Black. It could be argued that this is the cleanest twist in the whole saga, since the villain in the headlines becomes the family Harry has been missing.

A smaller moment I like is the Firebolt at the end. After the escape on Buckbeak, a single gift is enough to tell Harry that someone is looking out for him. It is understated, and it is the film's last word on the relationship.

The death in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is less satisfying as writing, perhaps because it arrives in the middle of a crowded Ministry battle and the film hurries on to the Dumbledore and Voldemort duel. That being said, the pay-off is real. Harry's grief at the close lands because the earlier film gave him something to lose. If you are new to the series, watch Azkaban first and Phoenix afterward, and Oldman's two performances read as one arc.