David Yates

David Yates gets stuck with an enormous task in this film: take J. K. Rowling's massive seventh novel, split the narrative arc across two films, and still make each movie stand on its own.

That's a huge undertaking, and we have to tip our hat to Yates (and Steve Kloves, too, of course) for being brave enough to take it on.

Of course, Yates had already gotten his feet wet with the whole Harry Potter universe when he directed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, so that probably helped him prep for the behemoth effort to splitting up the source text for Book 7.

(Psst: Feel free to check out our guide on that particular film for more on Yates and the filmmaking road that led him to the Potterverse.)