Ranking the 7 Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films with Rebirth hitting theaters
Life has certainly found a way for the Jurassic films since Steven Spielberg's 1993 masterpiece, built on the continued audience interest (and lucrative box office return) in watching dinosaurs go rogue.
Of course, no Jurassic film will ever touch the original, but we can still rank the six sequels against each other as we take in the latest the series has to offer. Let's do just that. Hold on to your butts.
7. Jurassic World Dominion
Jurassic World Dominion has its moments, but the entire legacy sequel juice got squeezed out of the franchise with this bloated installment that tries to close out the Chris Pratt/Bryce Dallas Howard trilogy and bring back Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum and Laura Dern back to the franchise all at once for the first time since the first film. Some of the dinosaur action is fun, but the film has a messy overload streak that's hard to deny.
6. Jurassic Park III
Joe Johnston is an underrated assignment director, probably one of the best journeymen of his generation, but his Jurassic film felt more diverting than meaningfully digestible. The third act ramps up the tension and craft with a terrific scene in a foggy jurassic aviary, but the film jogs through the motions until it really starts running. It's admirably lean for where the series ultimately wound up, but it's evident there was only so much on the bone to chew on for the filmmakers and cast. Coming off two Spielbergs, it's a meaningful drop.
5. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
J.A. Bayona understood honest-to-goodness terror as well as any filmmaker who has worked on one of these films not named Spielberg. While Fallen Kingdom opens the Pandora's box on the franchise gobbledygook that ultimately held Dominion back, some of the best non-Jurassic Park thrills await within. The erupting volcanic island and the dinosaur mansion hunt felt like two of the freshest concepts post-Spielberg, giving Jurassic World the same kind of darker sequel the original film got. It has its faults, but the best of it earns its stripes.
4. Jurassic World Rebirth
After Jurassic World: Dominion maxed out whatever legacy sequel juice was left in Spielberg's original masterwork, Jurassic World Rebirth plays like a refreshing purification exercise. Shedding most all of the world-building established in the previous Jurassic World films, Rebirth feels like a genuine rebirth. The trouble with a Jurassic sequel is that you're constantly giving viewers variations of the same ride they took in 1993 or at any time since then.
Read our review.
3. Jurassic World
One of the biggest critiques of Jurassic World was a question of how would the people in this make the same grand mistake of the first film? Well, look around! History is filled with repeated mistakes, and Jurassic World is the best Jurassic film we've gotten in this century because of how intriguing it is to finally see the park in motion, to see just enough guardrails lasting so long to give this new meltdown a larger audience. Sure, you can knock the raptor taming all you want, but this is easily the best Jurassic film not to be made by Spielberg.
2. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Spielberg seemed to know with his Jurassic Park sequel that he just couldn't recapture the awe and horror of his original masterwork. The ideas aren't as strong here, but Spielberg in his nasty sequel territory is always a fun time. He subverts your expectations with a gnarlier beast more likely to pounce at any given moment. This is easily the scariest Jurassic film, the one where your main characters feel the most in danger. Sure, this isn't one of Spielberg's best films by any means, but it's certainly the closest to gnawing at the heels of the original.
1. Jurassic Park
Spielberg changed the game twice on the summer blockbuster, first with Jaws and second with Jurassic Park. The maestro's second masterpiece of a monster movie dealt with the wonder of nature and the devastations of creation under a false sense of control. The film masterfully balances its white-knuckle dinosaur escapes with heady rumination the consequences of playing God. A modern-day Frankenstein with sharper teeth, there is a reason we keep coming back to Jurassic Park all these years later and why it towers over so many of the major blockbusters that stomped in after it. Spielberg again redefined what it meant to go to the movies in the summer, and we're still seeking our mainstream movies to reach the high bar set by the T-Rex and the raptors.
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