From the Great to the Disgraceful: All the ‘Jurassic’ Movies, Ranked!

With ‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ in theaters, it’s time to rank its six predecessors. Which are still worth streaming?

Tracey Minkin,

AARP

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Published July 03, 2025

chris pratt riding a motorcycle while flanked by galloping velociraptors

Chris Pratt in ‘Jurassic World’ (2015)

Universal Pictures/Courtesy Everett Collection

Is it ever a bad summer when there’s a Jurassic movie hitting theaters? In 2025’s Jurassic World: Rebirth, the seventh film in the storied, PG-13 dinosaur franchise, Scarlett Johansson stars with two-time Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, 51, and Emmy nominee Jonathan Bailey as an extraction team heads back to the original Jurassic Park island to deal with the worst of the worst dinos that were left behind.

Early reviewers say Rebirth is just the kick-in-the-pants reboot the franchise desperately needed, and it may be among the best ever in the series. But how do the others, from 1993’s original Jurassic Park to 2022’s Jurassic World Dominion, stack up? Here are all the Jurassic movies ranked according to critical acclaim, box office, fan love and sheer watchability, in order from bad to immortally good.

**Sixth Place: Jurassic World Dominion (2022)**

Ranking: Overstuffed, poorly written, it’s just too far removed from the franchise’s roots. Action scenes lack suspense, characters lack motive, chase scenes lead nowhere. This stinker deserves to go extinct.

The plot: Dinosaurs that were released at the end of the previous Jurassic flick, 2018’s Fallen Kingdom, roam the earth alongside humans, causing awkward encounters and chase scenes derivative of better movies like the Bourne films. For much of the film’s two and a half hours, dinos get upstaged by a plague of giant locusts created by Biosyn, a sinful bio firm.

The stars: Dominion reached for nostalgic casting, reuniting Laura Dern, now 58, Sam Neill, 77, and Jeff Goldblum, 72 (who had not appeared together since the 1993 original) along with later franchise stalwarts Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard.

How’d it do? Even though it got a beastly 29 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and critic Kristy Puchko called Dominion auteur Colin Treverrow “the worst thing that’s happened to dinosaurs since that asteroid knocked them all into the past tense,” fans flocked to see its expensive effects, and it grossed $1 billion worldwide. The London Observer compared it to another dinos-versus-humans movie, “the apocalyptically stupid A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell (1990).”

Stream or skip? Skip.

**Fifth Place: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)**

Ranking: Better than Dominion, and props for some scary sequences and vivid visuals, but it’s afflicted by sloppy logic and shifts in tone.

The plot: Oh, no! Everyone’s favorite dinosaurs are threatened when a dormant volcano on Isla Nublar (home of the now-shuttered Jurassic World theme park) roars back to life. Owen (Pratt) and Claire (Howard) bring survivors to the mainland. Betrayals ensue, and the movie ends with dinos unleashed.

The stars: Pratt and Howard, who anchor all three Jurassic World films. Goldblum makes a brief appearance as Ian Malcolm, the wryly philosophical chaos theoretician from the original Jurassic Park.

How’d it do? Moviegoers stand by their dino blockbusters: Despite meh reviews, Fallen Kingdom made $1.31 billion worldwide.

Stream or skip? Skip.

**Fourth Place: Jurassic Park III (2001)**

Ranking: Though fast-paced, and it gets points for giving us a new dino species (the Spinosaurus, tougher than T. rex and the main bad guy in a film with no human bad guy), it’s the weakest of the original trio of Jurassic films. Maybe because this was the first Jurassic film not directed by Steven Spielberg, it feels light and forgettable.

The plot: Dr. Alan Grant (Neill) is reluctantly drawn back into the world of dinosaurs when a wealthy couple hires him to guide an aerial tour over Isla Sorna — the second island where InGen bred its ancient leviathans. Plane crash! New and scarier predator! Smarter Velociraptors!

The stars: Neill is joined by Téa Leoni, now 59, and William H. Macy, 75, as the wealthy couple, and in a cameo, Dern as Ellie Sattler, the paleobotanist from the first film.

How’d it do? Against a budget of $93 million, JP3 grossed $368.8 million worldwide, clearing the summer blockbuster bar. Moviegoers voted thumbs-up. Critics, not so much (it got a mediocre 49 percent on Rotten Tomatoes).

Stream or skip? Since it’s a tight 92 minutes, almost an hour shorter than Jurassic World Dominion, it would make a good double feature with one of the better films.

**Third Place: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)**

Ranking: Some critics consider the original film’s first follow-up, also directed by Spielberg, the second best in the franchise, but we say the pure blockbuster energy of 2015’s Jurassic World really out-growls it.

The plot: Four years after the original film’s Jurassic Park theme park disaster, Doctor Malcolm heads to Isla Sorna, a secondary island where dinosaurs were originally bred, to document the critters in their natural habitat and build a case for their protection. Wicked biotech profiteers from InGen plan to capture and transport the dinosaurs to the mainland. Enter satisfyingly rampaging T. rexes, including one cranky fellow who gets loose in San Diego and chomps a guy trying to hide in a Blockbuster store (played by the film’s screenwriter, David Koepp, 62).

The stars: Goldblum as Malcolm, with Julianne Moore, now 64, as his girlfriend, the late, great Pete Postlethwaite as a big-game hunter, and Vince Vaughn, 55, as a documentarian.

How’d it do? The original Jurassic Park was a tough act to follow, even for Spielberg. Lost World pleased both fans and critics with lots of action, plus great set pieces (including T. rexes trying to nudge the scientist’s trailer off a cliff). But critics found fault with the second film’s less compelling story and characters. Audiences, however, stampeded to theaters, and it grossed $618.6 million.

Stream or skip? Stream, especially for Spielberg fans.

**Second Place: Jurassic World (2015)**

Ranking: Big props to this franchise revival, a full 22 years after the original, successfully blending nostalgia with high-octane action sequences. Jurassic World is a true summer blockbuster and worthy of runner-up status (and it’s got total nerd approval, nabbing the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film).

The plot: Everything old is new again, as Isla Nublar gets a rebuilt theme park with a slightly new name and a genetically modified dinosaur — Indominus rex — as its star attraction. What could possibly go wrong?

The stars: Pratt and Howard take over the franchise as Owen and Claire; he’s a Velociraptor handler, and she’s the park’s operations manager. Look for BD Wong, now 64, reprising his role from the original film as dino-making geneticist Henry Wu.

How’d it do? Like an Indominus rex on a rampage, Jurassic World crushed it: $1.67 billion worldwide, making it the seventh-highest grossing film ever as of 2015. Critics mostly applauded, though the ones who thought the character depth didn’t equal the original dragged its Rotten Tomatoes rating to 72 percent.

Stream or skip? Stream, by all means.

**First Place: Jurassic Park (1993)**

Ranking: Talk about a monster hit! It’s the best of the best, and proof that a summer-ruling blockbuster can be a great movie for the ages. Spielberg had invented the modern blockbuster in 1975 with Jaws, celebrating its 50th anniversary this season, but Jurassic Park also managed to convey some of the fascinating scientific ideas in Michael Crichton’s novel.

The plot: We all know this one. A billionaire opens a dinosaur theme park using cloned DNA from dino-biting mosquitoes preserved in amber. The park’s gate security could be better. No matter how many times you watch it, your pulse still pounds when those Velociraptors sniff around that kitchen for the cowering children hiding there.

The stars: What an all-star team! Gandhi director Richard Attenborough radiates a sense of wonder (and hubris) as the park’s auteur. As the chaotician, Goldblum’, with his syncopated verbal riffs, won a spot on Hollywood’s A list, along with Dern, who leaped from indie starlet to blockbuster heroine as the scrappy feminist paleobotanist. (They fell in love on set and carved their initials inside a heart on the Jurassic Park gate.) Wayne Knight, 69, outdoes his Seinfeld villain, Newman, as a dino embryo smuggler. As his virtuous fellow computer engineer, Samuel L. Jackson, now 76, made his blockbuster debut, but his death scene was canceled thanks to a hurricane that shut down filming. So all we see is his arm chomped off by a dino. Jackson likes to think his character is still alive somewhere, with one arm. The movie certainly will never die.

How’d it do? Jurassic Park beat Spielberg’s E.T. as the biggest film in history, grossing more than $1 billion (later, Titanic grossed about twice that).

Stream or skip? Stream it forever.

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