W B Although creatures as great and dangerous as dinosaurs no longer inhabit the earth, they have served as inspiration for many. That is why, based on these species, books, comics, television series and of course, movies have been created. Next, we present the top 10 dinosaur movies of all time.
#10 A sound of thunder (2005)
Set in the year 2055 and time travel is no longer a dream or part of the movies, now, it is a fact. But these trips are part of an empire dominated by Charles Hatton, who organizes expeditions to the Jurassic world and allows travelers to eliminate dinosaurs, well, only those who are about to die. In addition, they can’t take anything from the prehistoric world, but as you may have imagined, someone captures a butterfly without knowing what this would produce in its current era. Returning from the timetraveling adventure, they find the city of Chicago a disaster, full of vegetation and creatures that are totally new to them. Thus, Dr. Travis Ryer, in charge of the voyages, along with Dr. Sonia Rand discover that as a result of the alteration of the past there have been great evolutionary changes, especially in the animal species so they will have to face all kinds of dangers to remedy the situation.
Based on a story by Ray Bradbury, this film was directed by Peter Hyams and starring Edward Burns, Ben Kingsley and Catherine McCormack.
#9 Dinosaur (2000)
Directly from Disney studios, this film is directed by Eric Leighton and Ralph Zondag. Being one of his first feature films in which they used computer animation, he had some difficulties, since he was in fact waiting for 7 years, until in 1995 the project was resumed.
The movie is obviously set in prehistoric times, to be more specific, in the Cretaceous period where an iguanodon, a dinosaur that has kinship with reptiles, named Aladar was raised by a clan of lemurs on an island because it was separated from its family at a very young age.
Everything on its peaceful life changes when a meteor shower destroys its home and it has to find a safe place to live, for which it joins a group of dinosaurs that go in search of the same thing. The problems seem to worsening when water and food become scarce, in addition to the appearance of other carnivorous and hungry dinosaurs that threaten to end their lives.
In general, this turns out to be a film that on top to showing part of the catastrophe of the end of the world for dinosaurs, it provides messages about acceptance and adaptation in the community.
#8 The lost world (1925)
Directed by Harry O. Hyot and played by Lewis Stone, Wallace Beery and Bessie Love, this film is a classic; it is a silent film and is based on the novel by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, being the first film adaptation of the author.
The story is about a scientist, Edward Challenger, who after a trip to the Amazon returns to London and gathers a group of scientists to reveal that in those unknown lands dinosaurs still live, so they assume he has simply gone crazy. But when hearing this rumor, the owner of a newspaper decides to finance an expedition with the condition of taking his daughter and one of his journalists along with him. This is how these two, together with a group of scientists, travel to a plateau in the Brazilian jungle. It will be a surprise to find a place inhabited by men who stayed in the past, cannibals and all kinds of prehistoric animals. So they will have to find a way to survive and arrive safely back in England.
Due to the year it was made, this film did not have enough technology to bring dinosaurs to life, but it was Willis H. O’Brien, in charge of special effects and pioneer of film animation, who took care of this aspect using a technique that simulated animation using rubber figures that moved millimeter-wise in each of the frames.
#7 King Kong (2005)
Directed by Peter Jackson and starring Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody and Andy Serkis. Although it does not have dinosaurs as their main elements, King Kong inhabits a land with prehistoric animals and this movie has a scene in which the giant gorilla and some dinosaurs have an incredible fight.
The film is set in the times of the Great Depression. It is here that an unemployed actress named Ann Darrow meets Carl Denham, an entrepreneur and filmmaker who seeks to gather fame. He decides to hire her as the protagonist of his next film that would take place on Skull Island. In addition to her, Denham also hired the playwright Jack Driscoll.
When they arrive they will discover that they are not alone, because they find cannibal tribes, prehistoric animals and the great King Kong, the most feared animal on the island. Upon seeing this creature, Denham is fascinated and instead of asking for help or returning with the rest of the group, he decides to stay and shoot a documentary, this time with King Kong as the main character, who also shows a lot of curiosity and attachment for Ann. Not satisfied with this, he will kidnap the great beast to earn money by showing it around New York, but he didn’t expect the great catastrophe that would cause.
#6 The land before time (1998)
An animated film that has brought tears to many and if you haven’t seen it yet, please do. Produced by Universal Studios, with on Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as executive producers and directed by Don Bluth.
The film focuses on Littlefoot, a dinosaur belonging to a peaceful race called “leafeaters”, who after an earthquake is forced to move with its family, but on the way, they are stalked by carnivorous dinosaurs, which end up killing its mother and leave him an orphan. That is how our main character is accompanied by a group of small friends: Wax, a triceratops; Duckie, a Saurolophus; Petrie, a pteranodon and Spike, a stegosaurus. They are searching for the enchanted valley, while they go through many difficulties such as lack of water, food and the constant threat of predators.
A story that goes further and leaves us teachings about friendship, maturity, courage, love of parents and hope, also going through darker subjects, such as loneliness.
Another aspect that characterizes the film is its soundtrack composed by Oscar winner James Horner.
#5 The Good Dinosaur (2015)
Produced by Pixar and directed by Peter Sohn, this film has an impeccable aesthetics and a moving story.
This film places us in an alternative reality in which the asteroid that destroyed the life of the dinosaurs never fell on earth. As a result of this, humans and dinosaurs coexist together on earth and the latter are used to graze livestock. The story presents Arlo, a tender Apatosaurus who lives quietly on a corn farm with his parents and brothers, Buck and Libby. But from a traumatic event, Arlo decides to start a trip with a wild human child that Arlo baptizes as Spot. In this journey, both will have to learn to survive, our main character will face its fears and discover everything it is capable of. The tyrannosaurs Ramsey, Nash and Butch also join in their journey.
An interesting fact about this film is that the director wanted this to be a film with few words and that the expressions of the characters are used to convey their emotions. Regarding this, Spot, the human friend of Arlo does not speak, only grunts.
#4 The water horse (2007)
Directed by Jay Russell and starring Alex Etel, Emily Watson and Ben Chaplin. This film is based on a legend born in Scotland about 1,500 years ago of the monster of Loch Ness who, according to several theories, is actually a plesiosaurus that managed to escape death and hide in this great lake.
The story is set at the time of the Second World War and begins when Angus MacMorrow, a Scottish boy who lives with the only wish that his dad returns from the war, and spends most of his time alone. On one of his walks near the beach, he finds something that looks like an egg and decides to take it home. Soon, he will realize that this is not just any egg and everything makes sense when it hatches and the well-known monster of Loch Ness is born, which he called Crusoe.
Thus, the MacMorrow family must keep the creature hidden, but as it grows, it becomes more difficult to keep it hidden, so Angus decides to take it to Loch Ness so it can live better and in freedom. Everything changes when the lake becomes a battleground, in which great artillery is installed, which puts Crusoe’s life in danger.
#3 Ice Age (2002)
This fun film directed by Chris Wedge, that many of you will have already seen. And while our characters are not dinosaurs, they do live in prehistoric times and live alongside them.
History places us about 20 thousand years ago, just as the Ice Age began and prehistoric animals migrated to warm lands. It is here when Manny comes along, a somewhat stubborn mammoth who, annoyed with everything, decides to go against it all and go in the opposite direction.
On the way, he finds a silly little sloth named Sid, who is running away from dinosaurs after leaving them without food. Sid decides to follow the mammoth to be protected and maintain some kind of friendship.
Things change completely when the pair finds a human baby on the bank of a river and Sid convinces Manny to take him back to his family. But Diego, a saber-toothed tiger, claims the baby as its own because it kidnapped him as revenge towards the little boy’s parents, whose tribe finished with his entire family almost compleely. Realizing that Sid has no plans to give the baby back under any circumstances, Diego has no choice but to accompany them and make them believe that he also intends to take the baby with his family, but the reality … is another.
#2 Jurassic World (2015)
These types of sequels are those that show you that mistakes are not always learned. Directed by Colin Trevorrow and starring Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard, this film broke box office records reaching over 511 million dollars worldwide just in its first weekend, a success.
The story takes up the subject of cloned dinosaurs but this time the dinosaur theme park, called Jurassic World, has been running for more than 10 years without any problem, except that the tickets no longer sell as much as they did.
In order to get the public back, investors decide to create a new species of dinosaur, an attraction that they think will make them recover fame and money. But they did not count on the fact that the new dinosaur with altered DNA would become a thinking being and escape from its prison to feed on visitors.
#1 Jurassic Park (1993)
Jurassic Park is now practically a whole franchise. The story is based on Michael Crichton’s book about dinosaurs cloned from genetic engineering became so famous that it had 3 movies already.
History introduces us to John Hammond, a billionaire and owner of a bioengineering company InGen who achieves one of his greatest dreams, creating an amusement park with a kind of zoo where real dinosaurs are shown, brought to life after having financed a project in which these amazing creatures were cloned from their DNA, found in the fossil of a mosquito. Before inaugurating the place and to convince visitiors of the saety of it, he invites a group of researchers, Alan the paleontologist; Ellie, a paleobotanist, Malcom, a theoretician and finally his grandchildren Aleix and Tim. Everything will change when they realize that security measures are not enough, when they are attacked by all the creatures of the place. So they will have to do everything possible to survive and place themselves safely outside the Jurassic Park.
Directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jeff Goldblum, Laura Dern and Sam Neill, this film was a total success, it has millions of fans and has won many awards, including an Oscar for best visual effects, best sound, best sound editing, the Saturn award for best director, the People’s Choice Awards to the favorite movie, among others.
What did you think of this top? Have you already chosen your movie chosen for the weekend? Don’t forget to comment which of these movies is your favorite or which one you plan to watch next. Until next time.
