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Credit: Universal PicturesJurassic World Rebirth (2025) will soon be roaring its way into movie theaters worldwide. Directed by Gareth Edwards (2014’s Godzilla) with a screenplay by David Koepp (Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park), the film is billed as the start of “a new Jurassic era.”
Starring Scarlett Johansson (the Marvel Cinematic Universe), Jonathan Bailey (Bridgerton), and Mahershala Ali (The Green Book), Rebirth centers on a top-secret mission to retrieve genetic material from three dinosaurs on a mysterious InGen island, where “a sinister, shocking discovery” (per the official synopsis) awaits them.
Watch the official trailer for the film below, per Universal Pictures:
Now, with Jurassic World Rebirth just a few months from its theatrical release, there’s no better time to revisit every film in the series so far. So here are all the Jurassic movies, including the canonical short film Battle at Big Rock (2019), ranked from worst to best.
But hold onto your butts – this is not your average ranking.
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7. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) picks up three years after the events of Jurassic World (2015), in which the dinosaur theme park collapses after a genetic hybrid known as the Indominus Rex escapes its enclosure and wreaks havoc on Isla Nublar.
Now, a volcano threatens to wipe out Nublar’s dinosaurs (pretty poor research and planning on InGen’s part), which leads to polarizing opinions around the world about what to do with the “de-extinct” dinosaurs. Save them, or let them die as nature originally intended?
Meanwhile, when former Jurassic World operations manager Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and raptor expert Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) lead a new team back to the island to rescue as many dinosaurs as possible, they learn that their financier and military escort have other plans — sell the dinosaurs at an illegal auction in a mansion on the mainland.
From dinosaur stampedes set against volcanic eruptions to creepy genetic hybrids lurking in gothic mansions, Fallen Kingdom is not without huge thrills and truly striking visuals. But as a film of two halves (it has a jarring central shift in both setting and tone), we can’t help but feel that there was a tug of war between Universal Pictures and director JA Bayona.
While we understand that the film’s goal is ultimately to bring the dinosaurs to the mainland, Fallen Kingdom feels too contrived to be clever. Not only that, but the heroes’ goal in bringing dinosaurs to the mainland also mirrors that of the villains from The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), which can leave you feeling quite conflicted about them.
Related: ‘Jurassic Park: Survival’ Trailer Breakdown
6. Jurassic Park III
Jurassic Park III is generally considered the worst movie in the franchise, and there’s really no surprise (although we clearly prefer it to Fallen Kingdom). A troubled production got the film off to a bad start, and even without a finalized script in place, the cameras started rolling. But has time improved this threequel, or do its off-screen problems still show?
Directed by Joe Johnston, Jurassic Park III picks up four years after The Lost World. Isla Sorna/Site B — the second island with dinosaurs — has been long declared a “no-fly” zone by the Costa Rican government. But that doesn’t stop young Eric Kirby (Trevor Morgan) and his stepfather Ben Hildebrand (Mark Harelik) from going parasailing along the island’s coast.
We catch up with Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), who’s approached by a couple — Paul Kirby (William H Macy) and Amanda Kirby (Tea Leoni) — requesting his services to be their guide on an aerial tour of Site B. But when they land, Grant learns that they’re Eric’s parents.
While the plot for Jurassic Park III is paper-thin, the film wastes no time in getting down to business — it’s dinosaurs galore within minutes. In fact, you could easily compare this film to one of the Jurassic Park attractions at Universal Studios.
It’s a roller coaster ride that doesn’t let up (it’s also very short). But it’s by no means problem-free, and its performance at the box office sent the franchise into extinction for what felt like 65 million years.
Related: ‘Jurassic Park’ Releasing Official Never-Before-Seen Version of 1993 Film
5. The Lost World: Jurassic Park
The first sequel to Jurassic Park (1993) was the last in the series to be directed by Steven Spielberg (though he would return as executive producer for subsequent films). It’s also the last to be based on a novel. Like the original bestseller “Jurassic Park” (1990), “The Lost World” was penned by the late Michael Crichton (although there are many differences).
This time, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) returns to lead a rescue mission to Site B, where his paleontologist girlfriend Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) has been sent by John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) to study dinosaurs, a mission the entrepreneur hopes will dissuade InGen from taking dinosaurs from the island for a San Diego-based Jurassic Park.
However, with Hammond having been ousted from the board, InGen shows up at the island with a team of game hunters, and they soon cross paths with Malcolm’s expedition. But when a pair of adult Tyrannosaurus Rexes avenge the maiming of their offspring, both teams join forces and try to make it off the island in the same number of pieces they arrived in.
Like the first film, there are lots of “oohs” and “aah’s”, and a lot of “running and screaming”, too. The Lost World is a solid successor to the 1993 classic, even if it does suffer from an overuse of comedy — especially during a third act that should have been entirely nail-biting. Nevertheless, unlike any other sequel to follow, the atmosphere here is on point.
Related: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’: “Sinister, Shocking” Plot Twist Explored
4. Battle at Big Rock
It would seem unfair not to include Battle Big Rock on this list — after all, despite only being around eight minutes long, it’s a film nonetheless. Directed by Colin Trevorrow (Jurassic World and Jurassic World Dominion), this bite-sized entry premiered online in 2019 as part of a huge marketing campaign to drum up attention for the sixth film in the series.
The film centers on a family on a camping trip when the site is attacked by an Allosaurus. With such a short runtime, Battle Big Rock manages to paint a more effective and realistic picture of dinosaurs living among humans than Fallen Kingdom and Dominion ever did, while also honoring the spirit of the Jurassic World trilogy.
The downside? The film felt like a pilot to a live-action Jurassic World television series we never got in the end. While there are now fresh rumors about such a project swirling online, should it come to light, it’s highly unlikely to focus on dinosaurs on the mainland.
Instead, it will probably orbit the Jurassic World Rebirth timeline. And seeing as the new film has completely retconned Fallen Kingdom and Dominion by revealing that dinosaurs are dropping like flies all around the world because the “planet’s ecology has proven largely inhospitable” to them, we’ll never see the prehistoric beasts roaming our world ever again.
Related: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’ Accidentally Confirms the Deaths of Several Characters
3. Jurassic World Dominion
Despite grossing over $1 billion at the worldwide box office, Jurassic World Dominion (2022) was torn apart by many fans and critics faster than Robert Muldoon was by that raptor in the original 1993 film. But, as you can see, we’ve shockingly ranked the film in third place, which we’re sure will rattle some cages.
While most of the criticisms about the film are valid — it certainly doesn’t spend a great deal of time focusing on dinosaurs living among us in the modern world, as all the marketing promised — we think fans and critics were a bit too harsh on Jurassic World Dominion. In fact, we (evidently) think it’s far more entertaining than some of the other sequels.
The truth is that the sixth film in the series was never going to live up to the original — in fact, the only entry that has come close is the first Jurassic World movie. Nevertheless, Jurassic World Dominion still manages to deliver thrilling dinosaur action in spades, while also reuniting us with the original Jurassic Park (1993) characters.
Seeing Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, and Laura Dern reprise their roles as Dr. Alan Grant, Dr. Ian Malcolm, and Dr. Ellie Sattler respectively is a pure joy. So is seeing them team up with the Jurassic World ensemble. And while the plot that brings them together comes out of left field, Dominion boasts some of the most terrifying dinosaur sequences in the franchise.
Related: 7 Major Bloopers Fans Never Noticed in ‘Jurassic Park’
2. Jurassic World
When Colin Trevorrow told us he was the ultimate Jurassic Park fan and that the series was his answer to Star Wars growing up, we knew the franchise was in good hands. And when Jurassic World hit theaters in summer 2015, following what was the biggest marketing campaign we’d seen for a blockbuster movie for a very long time, it certainly delivered.
For the first time since Jurassic Park, the long-awaited sequel takes us back to Isla Nublar, where the Masrani Corporation has built a new dinosaur theme park resort — quite literally on top of the original one that collapsed all those decades ago. But now, to keep investors and guests keen, a new hybrid dinosaur known as the Indominus Rex has been created.
But, naturally, in true Jurassic fashion, things go awry when the Indominus Rex breaks free from its enclosure and wreaks havoc all over the island. It’s up to operations manager Claire Dearing and raptor expert Owen Grady to stop the genetic abomination, with help from some unlikely allies: a pack of trained raptors and the original Jurassic Park T-Rex.
Jurassic World is by far the strongest sequel in the entire Jurassic series. And even if it is a blatant love letter to the 1993 classic, it manages to forge its own identity. While it’s definitely an outlandish sequel (the dinosaur fight at the end feels like a WWE match), it’s still an epic follow-up that saved the series from extinction, without the use of mosquitos.
Related: Did You Know That ‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’ Is Actually a Remake?
1. Jurassic Park
You can accuse us of being predictable, but we’re convinced the top of your list is the same. While opinions are subjective, and there are many fans out there whose number one is different to ours, Jurassic Park is and always will be our favorite movie in the franchise.
When three scientists are invited to an island theme park resort to give their seal of approval before it opens to the public, nothing could have prepared them for real-life dinosaurs. But when they put their wonder aside, Dr. Alan Grant, Dr. Ian Malcolm, and Dr. Ellie Sattler begin to question the morality of InGen’s genetic exploitation of extinct prehistoric life.
Beneath this artificial paradise there are many flaws, but all it takes to bring Jurassic Park down is one disgruntled employee (Wayne Knight’s Dennis Nedry) and a spot of industrial espionage. When the power is out, so are the dinosaurs, and the guests are pitted in a battle of survival against some of the deadliest predators to have ever walked the Earth.
Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park changed cinema forever. And its prehistoric cast members look so convincing that we question whether dinosaurs were actually genetically engineered by the filmmakers. But putting all the surface-level quality aside, this sci-fi thriller is nothing short of a masterpiece with plenty to say about tampering with things beyond our control.
Related: ‘Jurassic World Rebirth’: Everything Wrong With the Plot and the New Trailer
When Is Jurassic World Rebirth Out in Theaters?
Jurassic World Rebirth will be stomping into theaters worldwide on July 2, 2025.
This latest installment introduces an entirely new cast, headlined by Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Bailey, and Mahershala Ali, alongside Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Rupert Friend, Luna Blaise, David Iacono, Audrina Miranda, Philippine Velge, Bechir Sylvain, and Ed Skrein.
However, none of the characters from previous films are returning—a major shift that leaves behind Jurassic Park and World veterans like Sam Neill (Alan Grant), Jeff Goldblum (Ian Malcolm), Laura Dern (Ellie Sattler), Chris Pratt (Owen Grady), BD Wong (Henry Wu), Bryce Dallas Howard (Claire Dearing), and Isabella Sermon (Maisie Lockwood).
How would you rank the Jurassic Park/Jurassic World movies? Let us know in the comments down below!