The film opens with Harry Potter and his caged owl Hedwig staying with the Dursleys on summer break. An elf named Dobby appears in Harry’s room and warns Harry not to return to Hogwarts this year because of terrible danger. Dobby’s disruptions result in Uncle Vernon locking Harry in his room until Harry is rescued by the Weasley brothers. Harry and Hedwig escape in the Weasleys’ flying car (a Ford Anglia), and Harry finishes the summer holiday at the Weasleys’ home, the Burrow. After buying their new schoolbooks, Harry and the Weasleys go to train station Platform 9 3/4, but the gateway closes on Ron and Harry before they can board the Hogwarts express. Harry and Ron use the flying car to get to Hogwarts, but the car breaks down and crashes into the sentient, whomping willow tree on the school’s grounds.
New professor and celebrity wizard author Gilderoy Lockhart (Kenneth Branagh) now teaches at Hogwarts. Harry resumes Quidditch practice with team Gryffindor. This year, Slytherin’s seeker is Harry’s rival Draco Malfoy, who sports a Nimbus 2001 broomstick. The ominous Chamber of Secrets (secretly located beneath the sink in the girls’ bathroom) has opened, and Professor McGonagall reveals to the students how Hogwarts' founder Salazar Slytherin built the chamber long ago. Salazar disliked Muggles (non-wizard humans) and Muggle-born wizards, and emerges as something of a racial supremacist. Salazar had sealed the chamber until his heir had returned to school. Professor McGonagall also reveals that a monster guards the chamber.
Harry and Ron temporarily take on the form of Crabbe and Goyle to gain information from Draco Malfoy. Meanwhile, the same potion turns Hermione into a large cat, and she is unable to turn back. The inevitable Quidditch match between Slytherin and Gryffindor results in a Gryffindor victory after Harry captures the snitch, but is attacked by a rogue bludger that breaks his arm. The pompous Professor Lockhart tries to heal Harry's arm, but instead removes Harry’s arm bones. Harry's arm recovers quickly.
Odd events occur: a Muggle-born student is petrified, and young Ginny Weasley starts losing her memory. Hagrid is arrested and sent to Azkaban prison for harbouring Aragog, a giant spider mistakenly thought to be the Chamber monster, and Dumbledore is removed as headmaster in the wake of all the problems. A girls’ bathroom ghost named Moaning Myrtle, an original victim of the Chamber of Secrets, provides Harry and Ron with Tom Marvolo Riddle’s talking diary.
One evening, Harry and Ron are called to the hospital wing. Upon their arrival, they are directed to Hermione's bed, when they reach her, she is petrified, shocking Harry and Ron. With Hermione's petrification, leaving Ron and Harry feeling terrible for what occurred, she is unable to help the two boys. This leaves them both with the task themselves to solve the cause of events that are threatening to close Hogwarts, and have to ultimately save all those that have fallen victim to petrification.
The massive spider Aragog aids Harry and Ron in learning that the chamber is guarded by a monstrous snake called a basilisk, which kills with its gaze. Harry and Ron learn that Professor Lockhart is not the great wizard he has appeared to be, and deceives people using a memory charm. After Ginny Weasley is taking into the Chamber of Secrets, with a message left on the wall that "her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever", Harry, Ron, and Lockhart enter the bathroom to rescue Ginny from the Chamber under the sink. Harry descends a long tunnel, and with aid from the Sorting Hat and Dumbledore’s Phoenix bird, Harry battles the Basilisk and Tom Marvolo Riddle. Riddle’s name is an anagram for “I am Lord Voldemort,” and Riddle is, in fact, the sixteen-year-old soul of Lord Voldemort, preserved in the diary. Harry kills the Basilisk with Godric Gryffindor's Sword and defeats Riddle by destroying the diary, rescuing Ginny in the process.
The petrified students and Hermione are cured. Hagrid is freed from Azkaban, elf Dobby is freed from service to the Malfoys, and Dumbledore is restored as Hogwarts’ headmaster who in turn reassures Harry that he truly belongs in the House of Gryffindor. The film ends with Hogwarts lit up from the Great Hall.
After the credits, a post-memory loss Lockhart is shown in Diagon Alley near a poster reading, "Who Am I?"
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