Jurassic Park is one of the most successful Movie franchises. Three of the franchise's installments are in the top 50 list of the highest-grossing movies ever.
Since the first installment, 1993's Jurassic Park, the sci-fi action franchise has spawned five more feature-length films and two short movies. The quality of the movies differs significantly, but nobody can deny their popularity.
In this piece, we'll take you through all the movies – including the shorts – in the Jurassic Park franchise. We'll list the entries by release date and the chronological order in which you should watch them.
By Release Date
- Jurassic Park (1993)
- The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)
- Jurassic Park III (2001)
- Jurassic World (2015)
- Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)
- Battle at Big Rock (Short) (2019)
- Jurassic World Dominion prologue (Short) (2021)
- Jurassic World Dominion (2022)
In Chronological Order
1. Jurassic Park (1993, directed by Steven Spielberg)
Jurassic Park is the brilliant movie that started it all. Based on the 1990 novel of the same name by Michael Crichton, its excellent cast includes Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, and Samuel L. Jackson.
It's about an island off the coast of Costa Rica populated by dinosaurs. Created by a wealthy businessman and a group of scientists, it's intended to become a major global attraction. However, when a group of experts arrives at the island to test it out, the security system gets deactivated by a rogue worker, and all hell breaks loose.
It's the best movie in the franchise by a long way and justifiably won three Academy Awards for its technical achievements. It has that wondrous Steven Spielberg charm.
2. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997, directed by Steven Spielberg)
The Lost World: Jurassic Park is set four years after the first movie's events. Jeff Goldblum returns alongside new franchise stars Julianne Moore, Vince Vaughn, Arliss Howard, and Pete Postlethwaite.
The story is that the dinosaurs at the original park were nurtured on a second island, prompting another businessman (the original's nephew) to attempt to use the creatures from that island at a new attraction in San Diego, California. The attempts are, of course, disastrous. It's the first movie where we see a dinosaur on the mainland.
It represented a significant drop in quality from the original masterpiece, but The Lost World remains one of the best movies in the Jurassic Park franchise.
3. Jurassic Park III (2001, directed by Joe Johnston)
Jurassic Park III is, again, set four years after the previous installment. The movie sees the return of Sam Neill to the franchise alongside the likes of William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, and Alessandro Nivola.
The movie's plot concerns a divorced couple whose son is missing on the island from the second movie. They deceive paleontologist Alan Grant – a dinosaur expert from the first movie – into helping them find him.
It's one of the weakest installments in the franchise and was a poor way to round off the original trilogy. Frankly, it's boring.
4. Jurassic World (2015, directed by Colin Trevorrow)
The first movie in the Jurassic World trilogy is set 14 years after the events of Jurassic Park III. It stars franchise newcomers Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D'Onofrio, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, and BD Wong, who reprises his role from the original film.
In Jurassic World, the park on the original island has been renamed and open since 2005, 12 years after the disaster that occurred at the first one. Chaos ensues when a transgenic hybrid dinosaur escapes and goes on the rampage.
While it's still not a patch on Jurassic Park, Jurassic World significantly improved on its 2001 predecessor and is arguably the second-best movie in the franchise with some great action.
5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018, directed by J. A. Bayona)
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is set three years after Jurassic World. Pratt, Howard, and Wong return from the previous movie, Jeff Goldblum reprises his role from the original trilogy, and Toby Jones, Ted Levine, and Rafe Spall join them in an all-star cast.
It follows the previous movie's cast as they return to the site of Jurassic World to rescue the remaining dinosaurs from an impending volcanic eruption. However, a mercenary team also has darker motives for bringing the creatures to the US mainland.
Although it has some excellent set pieces, it's a lot worse than its predecessor, and that drop in quality continues into the final feature-length movie.
6. Battle at Big Rock (Short) (2019, directed by Colin Trevorrow)
Battle at Big Rock is an eight-minute film starring André Holland and Natalie Martinez.
It centers on a family camping trip at Big Rock National Park, about 20 miles from where and one year after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ended. The first significant confrontation between dinosaurs and humans occurs in the civilized world, as an Allosaurus attacks a Nasutoceratops and her baby.
Despite minimal running time, it's the best installment in the Jurassic World franchise. It's genuinely better than all three feature-length movies and has everything a dinosaur fan could wish for.
7. Jurassic World Dominion prologue (Short, 2021, directed by Colin Trevorrow)
This five-minute film is a prologue to 2022's Jurassic World Dominion. Originally intended as the opening to Dominion, it was left on the cutting room floor and used as a short film. It has a scene set 65 million years ago, but the main action occurs just before Dominion, four years after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.
It follows the original Jurassic Park's Tyrannosaurus as it rampages through California, being pursued by a government task force created to handle the now-wild dinosaurs. The animal ends up in a drive-in theater, where it causes havoc and avoids a tranquilizer dart by fleeing into the woods.
This film has some terrible scientific accuracies, even by Jurassic Park standards. Still, it's visually stunning and features some of the best non-practical special effects in the franchise.
8. Jurassic World Dominion (2022, directed by Colin Trevorrow)
Jurassic World Dominion is the final movie in the Jurassic Park franchise, and it takes place four years after Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. The casts from the original and new trilogies come together for this one, including Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern, Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, and BD Wong.
It occurs in a world where dinosaurs and humans co-exist, with two key plots. The first is a rescue mission for a kidnapped cloned human child and a baby Velociraptor. The second sees the characters from the original movie teaming up to expose a conspiracy.
It's a poor movie and the worst one in the franchise. It should have been so much better with the combined ensemble cast, but it's just silly and overblown, and it makes you think the franchise should have been left alone after the original film.
More From Wealth of Geeks
Receiving a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes is a sought-after accomplishment all directors and filmmakers hope to achieve. But do you ever wonder what happens when a movie is so bad that it totally tanks at the box office?
Perhaps more difficult are those movies so awful they reach a zero on the Tomatometer, meaning no critic liked a single aspect of the film. So instead, they watched each dire moment, waiting for something decent to occur, but it never did.
Here are 13 movies that achieved a perfect zero on Rotten Tomatoes.
10 TV Shows That Should Have Quit While They Were Ahead
What TV show started great but ruined its reputation by staying entirely too far past its prime? I can think of a few, but I don't want to spoil the ending.
After being surveyed, the Internet responded with these television series that should have quit while they were ahead.
10 TV Shows That Should Have Quit While They Were Ahead
10 Surprising Movies That No One Cares About Anymore
Someone recently expressed they were searching for movies that exist but aren't a big deal anymore, despite a massive appeal and success initially.
They gave these examples, “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. The Bodyguard (two huge Kevin Costner films with enormous hit songs that no one has watched since 1997). The Revenant (Leo gets an Oscar, but can you remember anything besides the bear scene?). Seabiscuit. What else?” Here are the top responses.
10 Surprising Movies That No One Cares About Anymore
10 Most Hated Characters on The Big Bang Theory
Recently someone online asked, “Who do you consider the most unlikable on the show?” Do you think you know who took the number one spot on the list?
Here are the ten top-voted responses from the show's fans.
10 Most Hated Characters on The Big Bang Theory
10 Awesome Obscure 80s Movies No One Seems To Remember
Are you tired of the same well-known films on every 80s movie list? You're not alone.
An online discussion inquires, “What obscure 80s movie did you love that no one else seems to remember?” Here are the top responses.
10 Awesome Obscure 80s Movies No One Seems To Remember
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
