Jurassic Park Movies Ranked

6. Jurassic World: Dominion (2022)

Ok right wow. How does a film manage to be good at nothing? This film fell flat on its face for what was meant to be an epic conclusion to the entire Jurassic series. There were so many directions that Dominion could have taken, but instead, the filmmakers landed on a film about why big businesses are evil, with just enough dinosaurs to be able to put Jurassic World in the title. This feels like a massive missed opportunity, with the ending to Fallen Kingdom hinting at the dinosaurs being spread across the globe, blending in with human society, and struggling to coexist. Instead, most of the dinosaurs were trapped in one area, with the film feeling nowhere near as expansive as a finale should. Added to the fact that every single human character is infuriating to watch, with constant bad decisions being saved by nothing but plot armour, making every scene feel like there is no risk as none of the main characters are ever going to get harmed. Just a pathetic attempt at making a finale, with the filmmakers making 2 and a half hours feel like 4.

5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

Oh, what could have been. Like the last entry, there was so much potential in Fallen Kingdom, however, it disappointed in a major way. The story starts off fairly interesting, with elements from The Lost World being combined with a volcano about to blow up and destroy Isla Nublar made for good viewing. However, Fallen Kingdom descends into utter madness in the second half of the film when we find out the rescued dinosaurs are being sold off in an illegal auction. As well as this, the introduction of another hybrid in the form of the Indoraptor felt a little lazy, as it felt like the filmmakers could make the hybrid do anything they wanted, and being able to use the fact that its a hybrid as an excuse. Once again the characters are plain awful, with our main characters not being intresting enough to comepnsate for the awful and very cliche side characters, and my word there are a lot of them.

4. Jurassic Park 3 (2001)

Maybe I'm a little biased here. The Spinosaurus was my favourite dinosaur growing up, and it would feel wrong of me to put this film at the bottom of the list. However, it's also much more than that. Jurassic Park 3 is actually not that bad in some areas, with a good amount of dinosaur action included, with the real stars being the Spinosaurus and Velociraptors. Whilst the Kirby family is so frustrating to have on-screen, this is a problem that is limited by the film's short run time, clocking in at just over 1 and a half hours, which is much better than the nearly 2 and a half hour runtimes of the Jurassic World series. It's far from perfect, but Jurassic Park 3 is definitely a decent enough watch.

3. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

I'll be honest, I have always overlooked the Lost World. However I can now truly appreciate that it is very underrated, with flaws of course, but with many positives too. Whilst some of the characters are very annoying (that seems to be a theme here), there are many heart-pounding moments, including the cliff and campsite scenes. The inclusion of 2 T-Rexes was a very good one, with these scenes being elevated because of the danger being doubled. There are goofy moments such as using gymnastics to escape Velociraptors, but the Lost World stands out in it's final act. Some may argue the T-Rex being shipped off to San Diego was stupid, but I thought it was brilliant. This felt like almost like a scene straight out of a Godzilla film and did a much better job of that than America's first attempt at Godzilla in 1998.

2. Jurassic World (2015)

This film feels huge. Everything about it felt like a big deal before the park descended into glorious chaos. While not perfect, this genuinely feels accurate to how it would have gone if the original Jurassic Park opened. The inclusion of the Indominour Rex helped this, adding a more sinister side to the business side of the park. This set the tone for the rest of the series, where scientists would play god and bend the rules of nature, just as Dr Ian Malcom warned them not to do all the way back in 1993. There is so much nostalgia on the show, keeping fans of the original very happy. The characters are all pretty awful once again, but there is enough going on to distract us from that.

1. Jurassic Park (1993)

And here we arrive at a film that just cannot be beaten. The original Jurassic Park is near perfect, with excellent characters, and excellent story, and incredible practical and visual effects that still hold up over 30 years later. The sheer number of instantly iconic scenes and lines of dialogue is staggering, many of which are constantly referenced in pop culture. Everything started here, and while some of the sequels had a bigger scale with bigger budgets and more dinosaurs, the simplicity of the original Jurassic Park cannot be beaten, allowing it to stay as the measuring stick for the rest of the series.