Dino-fans unite! Oh boy, it’s a glorious time to return to the beloved Jurassic Park franchise. With the spinoff film Jurassic World: Rebirth taking a huge bite out of the summer box office season, audiences are once again returning to an adventure 65 million years in the making. And there’s no better way to honor the arrival of this exciting new installment than looking at the franchise as a whole, celebrating it for its thrilling dinosaur action, memorable characters, and all the best moments that had us cheering. But while we fans enjoy its wonder and spectacles, we also can’t forget that we love it for how these movies scare the pants off us sometimes.
While it’s viewed more as a combination of science fiction, action, and adventure, the Jurassic Park movies can also be seen as horror-adjacent. There are so many nail-biting and intense scenes within this series that feel straight out of the horror genre, either through frightening deaths or moments so suspenseful that they’ll have viewers on the edges of their seats. Some of these films are notably scarier than others and lean more towards a darker tone and feature moments that fit the criteria of a horror movie. From least to greatest, here is every installment in the Jurassic Park series, ranked by their ability to scare.
7
‘Jurassic World: Dominion’ (2022)
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Campbell Scott, Laura Dern, and Sam Neill
Starting off last on this list and last on so many other lists about this franchise is Jurassic World: Dominion, the film most die-hard fans have trouble defending. It’s often considered the worst installment in the reboot trilogy, a very uneven film lacking a compelling narrative, sensible storytelling, or any much-needed creativity. Its few saving graces are the dinosaur action scenes that pop up in between all the boring character moments and forgettable subplots. Unfortunately, though, this one really suffers from the least amount of scares in the franchise.
First, to give credit, nearly everything to do with the Giganotosaurus is quite nail-biting and suspenseful. It was great that the creature was mostly brought to life using animatronics for some scenes, and the design looks pretty terrifying and intimidating. And, although it might have just been brought in for cheap nostalgia, the return of the Dilophosaurus was thrilling because they’re just as creepy as they were shown in 1993. Overall, Jurassic World: Dominion has a few scary moments here and there, but they’re few in far between and don’t really make up for this film’s many flaws.
Jurassic World Dominion
- Release Date
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June 10, 2022
- Runtime
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147 minutes
- Director
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Colin Trevorrow
- Writers
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Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Jim Taylor, Michael Crichton, Peter Buchman, Rick Jaffa, Alexander Payne, David Koepp, Amanda Silver, Emily Carmichael
6
‘Jurassic World: Rebirth’ (2025)
Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
The new installment, Jurassic World: Rebirth, is keeping this popular franchise from extinction. Taking audiences on a new dinosaur-themed island adventure, this thrilling spectacular packs a punch and brings in a whole new cast of exciting talents like Scarlett Johansson and Academy Award-winner Mahershala Ali.
But despite providing more dinosaur action that fans enjoy, it certainly lacks suspense and terror. Much of the horror comes from the third act, when the characters race to the boat to get off the island while the dinosaur hybrid monsters attack the group from all around them. Also, the film’s big-bad dinosaur, the fictional D-Rex, does look quite intimidating and frightening sounding, but hardly has any screen time and only shows up in the last twenty minutes. Outside a few scary moments, this, along with Dominion, is the least bit terrifying and far more focused on adventure and action than anything else.
5
‘Jurassic World’ (2015)
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Vincent D’Onofrio, Ty Simpkins and Irrfan Khan
Returning the franchise back from extinction 14 years after the last installment, Jurassic World was a welcoming return to this thrilling dino series, featuring much of the crowd-pleasing fun and adventure these movies have been praised for. While it doesn’t do anything new with the formula, there’s more action, carnage, and certainly more of an impressive body count.
It boasts an impressive one, in fact, and features a lot more blood and on-screen attacks than previously shown. And there’s no looking past the fact that the Indominous Rex is quite a formidable antagonist who looks and sounds terrifying. She even has her own ominous theme song following her. The Velociraptors show more of their deadly capabilities in this film, and they are just as vicious as ever, although they’re not as scary as the ones from the original. Though Jurassic World heavily leans more towards for the most part, there are some intense scenes that definitely cross into horror territory and are quite shocking to see.
4
‘The Lost World: Jurassic Park’ (1997)
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Arliss Howard, and Richard Attenborough
The Lost World: Jurassic Park is often the misunderstood gem of the franchise and honestly deserves more praise. While far from the quality of its predecessor, it’s bigger, bolder, and takes a heavy leap towards horror. Featuring nearly 20 on-screen deaths, this has the highest body count of the original trilogy, and the deaths are brutal and, at times, gory, especially as some of them are graphically shown.
There’s brutal violence, injuries, and a lot of bloodshed shown throughout The Lost World. Take your pick on the scariest death, too! From Eddie Carr (Richard Schiff) getting ripped apart by a T. rex couple to mercenary Deter Stark (Peter Stormare) getting swarmed by an army of angry compys, there are truly some unforgettable and shocking demises in this movie that feel like they came from a horror film. Though there are several more on this list far scarier than this one, The Lost World: Jurassic Park is certainly a darker film that teeters closely into a different genre.
3
‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’ (2018)
Cast: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Rafe Spall, BD Wong, and James Cromwell
The middle child of the reboot trilogy Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is not the most well-liked, and many fans are constantly debating its quality, but they can’t deny its strengths. The action sequences are quite entertaining in this one, and some moments are arguably more thrilling than in the previous installment. Most importantly, there’s a heavier emphasis on terror, primarily in the third act when the heroes are at Lockwood Manor.
The Lockwood Manor final battle has some flaws, but they’re hard to see when the film introduces the newest big-bad hybrid monster, the Indoraptor. This creature is quite terrifying and far more cunning than the Indominous. This creature is a straight-up killer who uses the dark to pick people off in gruesome ways. Plus, it mostly targets a young girl (Isabella Sermon), which adds more tension and raises the stakes of this final act. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom overall has a stronger lean towards horror than compared to some of the others. The most thrilling scenes are truly shocking and can excite anyone who is a fan of the horror genre.
2
‘Jurassic Park III’ (2001)
Cast: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, and Michael Jeter
When it comes to Jurassic Park III, you either love it or hate it. While some argue it is the low point of the whole franchise sometimes, others love it for its nonstop dino-adventure feel. For one thing, it takes audiences on a thrill ride that’s quite entertaining, and, of course, it’s got moments that have scared viewers for decades.
First off, the main antagonist of this story, The Spinosaurus, is truly one of the most nightmare-inducing of the series. Its appearance is haunting, its kills are shocking, and its roar can send a shiver down one’s spine. There’s also an iconic chase scene where Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and company fight their way through a Pteranodon enclosure. It’s perfectly paced, brilliantly set up, and starts off with a monster slowly rising up out of a fog; pure chills. Overall, Jurassic Park III is uneven at times but is certainly one of the scariest entries of the franchise. It’s gotten better recognition over the years now for its better moments, and they really are quite chilling.
1
‘Jurassic Park’ (1993)
Cast: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Wayne Knight, Bob Peck, and Richard Attenborough
At the end of it all, nothing will ever beat the first one in anything. Steven Spielberg‘s thrilling masterpiece Jurassic Park is one of the greatest cinematic experiences of all time. It’s a film for all ages, able to thrill viewers from start to finish with its revolutionary effects, lovable characters, and, obviously, thrilling dinosaur moments.
Take your pick from some of the scariest, most suspenseful scenes from this classic. Whether it’s the T. rex escaping its enclosure to terrorize Tim (Joseph Mazzello) and Lex (Ariana Richards), Robert Muldoon’s (Bob Peck) death at the hands of some vicious velociraptors, or the kids being cornered by the velociraptors in the film’s nail-biting kitchen scene, this really is the closest the Jurassic Park franchise has come to being classified as horror. It’s quite terrifying, and that’s why people have loved it so much over the years. It’s the best of the franchises and takes its rightful place on this list as the scariest one so far.