Dinosaur Movies That Aren't Jurassic Park

Sixty-five million years of extinction, and still no shortage of casting.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A cracked hen's egg on a laboratory counter with a scaly dinosaur claw poking out, chicken feathers scattered around.

    10. Carnosaur

    Adam Simon · 1993

    Roger Corman rushed it out four weeks before Jurassic Park and cast Laura Dern's mother, Diane Ladd, as a mad scientist breeding dinosaurs from chicken eggs. It cost $850,000 and turned a profit. Ebert called it the worst film of 1993. Siskel liked it. Siskel was alone.

  2. A tiny baby brontosaurus footprint in the mud of an African rainforest swamp beside a dropped paleontologist's brush.

    09. Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend

    Bill L. Norton · 1985

    A paleontologist played by Sean Young finds a living brontosaurus family in Central Africa and protects the baby from soldiers and a rival scientist. Disney's Touchstone shot it partly in Ivory Coast. A reviewer said it proved Disney could make a brontosaurus cute.

  3. A bowl of glowing cereal on a parade float above a Manhattan avenue, a giant dinosaur balloon tethered nearby.

    08. We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story

    Simon Wells, Phil Nibbelink, Dick Zondag and Ralph Zondag · 1993

    A time-traveler feeds dinosaurs a cereal called Brain Grain and drops them in modern New York. John Goodman is the T. rex, Walter Cronkite is the time-traveler, Julia Child too. Spielberg's own studio released it the same year as Jurassic Park. It made $9.3 million.

  4. A small stone-walled farm field in a mountain valley with a tiny wooden plow sized for a giant, and a thunderstorm on the horizon.

    07. The Good Dinosaur

    Peter Sohn · 2015

    The asteroid misses, dinosaurs farm, and a timid Apatosaurus adopts a feral human boy like a dog. The landscapes look photographed. The production lost its first director and was delayed a year, and it became Pixar's first flop. Gorgeous, sad, and a little strange.

  5. A large dinosaur egg floating down a jungle river past waterfalls and tropical cliffs.

    06. Dinosaur

    Ralph Zondag and Eric Leighton · 2000

    Disney put CGI dinosaurs over real live-action landscapes shot in Hawaii, Venezuela and Australia. At $127.5 million it was reportedly the most expensive computer-animated film yet. The opening, an egg's journey across the world, is stunning. Then the dinosaurs start talking.

  6. A cowboy lasso and a dusty saddle lying in a Mexican desert valley beside a huge three-toed dinosaur footprint.

    05. The Valley of Gwangi

    Jim O'Connolly · 1969

    Cowboys lasso an Allosaurus, which is the entire pitch and also correct. Willis O'Brien conceived it decades earlier and died before it was made; Harryhausen finished the job. Warner Bros. was mid-shakeup and barely released it. It ends in a burning cathedral. Naturally.

  7. A fur bikini draped over a volcanic boulder beside a stone spear, a pterodactyl circling an erupting volcano.

    04. One Million Years B.C.

    Don Chaffey · 1966

    Hammer cavemen, Ray Harryhausen dinosaurs, and Raquel Welch in a fur bikini that became a best-selling pinup poster. Almost no dialogue beyond invented words for kill and look. Harryhausen also used a live iguana and a tarantula, blown up huge. Science was not consulted.

  8. A long-necked brontosaurus model standing on a collapsed stone bridge over a foggy river in old sepia tones.

    03. The Lost World

    Harry O. Hoyt · 1925

    Willis O'Brien's stop-motion dinosaurs, probably the first feature to make model animation its main effect. Arthur Conan Doyle screened test footage for a room of magicians including Houdini in 1922, and the Times wondered if it was real. Ends with a Brontosaurus loose in London.

  9. A single cracked dinosaur egg resting on a leaf in a misty, glowing valley with a waterfall and tall green trees.

    02. The Land Before Time

    Don Bluth · 1988

    Five orphaned baby dinosaurs walk to the Great Valley while a Sharptooth hunts them. Spielberg and Lucas cut over ten minutes, including 19 finished shots of the attack, for being too scary. It runs 69 minutes and still wrecks children. Thirteen sequels, all without them.

  10. A giant footprint pressed into jungle mud beside a fallen T. rex model with rabbit-fur texture, misty Skull Island cliffs behind.

    01. King Kong

    Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack · 1933

    Before the Empire State Building, Skull Island: a Stegosaurus taken down by sailors, a Brontosaurus picking off the crew, and Kong wrestling a T. rex while Ann watches from a tree. Willis O'Brien built the models with rabbit fur. Kong gets the poster. The dinosaurs did the work.

Honorable mentions

  • An old vaudeville stage with a ringmaster's whip on the boards and a hand-drawn dinosaur projected onto a screen, an apple in midair.

    Gertie the Dinosaur

    Winsor McCay · 1914

    A short, not a feature, but the first great dinosaur on film. McCay performed it live on vaudeville stages with a whip, giving Gertie commands and tossing her an apple that appeared on screen. It pioneered keyframes and loops. Every dinosaur above is her descendant.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A green dinosaur-sized trench coat and fedora hanging on a police precinct coatrack beside a VHS tape.

    Theodore Rex

    Jonathan Betuel · 1996

    Whoopi Goldberg plays a cop partnered with a T. rex detective. She tried to back out, got sued for $20 million, and settled by doing it for $7 million. It went straight to video, the most expensive direct-to-video film ever at the time. Zero percent on Rotten Tomatoes.

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