Jurassic World: Dominion (2022) is now out in theaters and will soon be available to stream and purchase on DVD and Blu-Ray, so you might be planning an epic binge of the entire series. But what is the correct order of the Jurassic Park movies?
Related: Does Jurassic World: Dominion Have a Post Credit Scene?
Jurassic Park
Steven Spielberg's original classic Jurassic Park (1993) pits a team of scientists - Dr. Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill), and Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), and children Lex (Ariana Richards) and Tim Murphy (Joe Mazzello) against cloned dinosaurs when a private theme park tour goes awry.
Jurassic Park became an instant classic and its special effects - both practical and digital - changed cinema forever. Spielberg's critically-acclaimed film has now spawned five sequels, and while none of them live up to the original, the Jurassic franchise remains among the most beloved.
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The Lost World: Jurassic Park
The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) invites us to a new island in the form of Site B/Isla Sorna, Jurassic Park's "factory floor", where Malcolm must go if he wants to save his paleontologist girlfriend Dr. Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore) and stop InGen from capturing dinosaurs for a new mainland attraction.
Like its 1993 predecessor, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is based off a novel by Michael Crichton. However, both book and film are, for the most part, vastly different. Nevertheless, the silver screen version is perhaps the only sequel to capture the tone and atmosphere of that original film.
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Jurassic Park III
Grant is next to visit Site B in Jurassic Park III (2001), when he's tricked into being an aerial tour guide for a seemingly entitled wealthy couple. However, they're actually looking for their lost son Eric Kirby (Trevor Morgan), who has been stranded on the island for several weeks following a parasailing accident.
Jurassic Park III was the first film in the series to have divided the fan base, while also turning an underwhelming box office figures as well as reviews. A troubled production plagued the film from the get-go, however, the film has in more recent years become a widely beloved entry in the series.
Related: Why is The Lost World movie so different from the book?
Jurassic World
22 years after the incident at Jurassic Park, and the dinosaur-inhabited theme park on Isla Nublar is finally open, this time known as Jurassic World. But the Masrani Corporation are about to make the same mistakes as John Hammond (Richard Attenborough), when their new dino-hybrid escapes into the park.
Colin Trevorrow breathed new life into this thought-to-be-extinct series, and Jurassic World devoured $1.9 billion at the global box office, which made it the highest-grossing film of all time. While its sequel Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom fell short, it was only by some half a billion dollars...
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Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) finds Isla Nublar existing on a knife's edge, as a thought-to-be-dormant volcano is days away from erupting and wiping out all life on the island. So it's up to Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) to save them.
The fifth entry in the series was the most divisive film until Jurassic World: Dominion came along. Directed by JA Bayona, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is certainly noted for its unique visual style, however, many criticize it for essentially being a film of two halves, while also serving as "filler".
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Battle at Big Rock
The Colin Trevorrow-directed short film Battle at Big Rock (2019) is canon, and offers a snapshot of what life is like on mainland North America one year after the dinosaurs escaped from Lockwood Manor in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, which makes it a bite-size Jurassic movie to sink your teeth into.
It begs to question whether or not Battle at Big Rock was created as a taster for a live-action Jurassic Park TV series, but the chances are it was simply made to whet the appetites of fans hungry to see dinosaurs roaming on mainland North America. But let's hope it's the former, because that would be roar-some.
Related: Is Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous Canon?
Jurassic World: Dominion Prologue
The second short film in the series comes in the form of the prologue for Jurassic World: Dominion, which shows us what life was like in the Cretaceous Period, before jumping forward and depicting a more current state of affairs, when "Rexy" is being hunted by authorities in the Sierra Nevada Forest.
While the prologue initially impressed, many fans and critics now consider it to be hugely misleading marketing on Universal's part, considering Jurassic World: Dominion doesn't focus on the premise of dinosaurs living among us as much as this film suggests. Either way, this is a great way to spend five minutes.
Jurassic World: Dominion
Jurassic World: Dominion is the hugely anticipated franchise-topper, which sees the return of fan-favorite Jurassic Park characters as they team up with Jurassic World alumni to save the world from a threat created by bioengineering company Biosyn. Meanwhile, dinosaurs are flourishing all around the world.
Jurassic World: Dominion might be getting eaten alive by those prehistoric critics, but it's still making a huge dino-sized bite in the box office, and is on track to become the highest-grossing film of 2022. It might not be wowing fans, either, but in time we think many will learn to appreciate it.
Jurassic World: Dominion is now out in theaters. It stars Bryce Dallas Howard (Claire Dearing), Chris Pratt (Owen Grady), Isabella Sermon (Maisie Lockwood), Omar Sy (Barry Sembène), and BD Wong (Henry Wu), Campbell Scott (Lewis Dodgson), DeWanda Sykes (Kayla), Jeff Goldblum (Dr. Ian Malcolm), Sam Neill (Dr. Alan Grant), and Laura Dern (Dr. Ellie Sattler).
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