Jurassic Park is one of the most lucrative and admired franchise in cinema’s overall legacy. What started off as character based sci-fi adventure ended up becoming a spectacle thrill ride with dinosaur action and dinosaurs eating people. I think we can all agree that that first Jurassic Park is a perfect movie that has stood the test of time and has been an inspirational landmark for technical filmmaking and serving as a template for modern blockbusters. Clearly, the first two sequels The Lost World and Jurassic Park III took the franchise down a different path and went for the more spectacle and dinosaur focus. About 14 or 15 years from the release of Jurassic Park III, Universal gave the franchise a new face lift with proper follow up to the first Jurassic Park, while also softly rebooting it at the same time. In 2022, the Jurassic Park franchise has never been this successful and highly demanded, With the release of Jurassic World Dominion and now that this era of Jurassic Park has seen it’s end, I’m going to take all 6 movies in the franchise and rank them from worst to best. Let’s begin!

#6 Jurassic Park III

Jurassic Park III is undoubtably the worst in the entirety of the Jurassic Park franchise. I won’t spoil this list too early, but anyone who tells you that any of Jurassic World movies are the worst movies of all time are stuck up Jurassic Park fans (more on that later in this list). Nevertheless, this is easily the weakest in the series. Nothing against Joe Johnston as a director (director of Rocketeer, Captain America: The First Avenger and October Sky), but his style didn’t sync up well with this entry. Where The Lost World had the odd nature of nothing having Sam Neil or Laura Dern, you at least get Sam Neil back as Alan Grant, where as Laura Dern is barely present in this movie and Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm is no where to be found. Jurassic Park III is an insanely laughable, goofy and sloppy made studio movie that never fully embraces the DNA of this franchise. There are some bright spots along the way, like the return of Sam Neil. Whenever the movie focuses on him, that’s when the movie works. However, the biggest and most frustrating part of this movie are Tea Leoni and William H Macy. There are two of the most annoying, cringy and anxiety inducing characters of any movie ever made. There are certainly worse movies than this one but in the realm of the Jurassic Park movies, Jurassic Park III takes the spot as the worst one.

#5 The Lost World: Jurassic Park

Being a direct sequel to Jurassic Park, The Lost World: Jurassic Park had a lot of hype and excitement considering how much of a great foundation the first film had with the world. The Lost World: Jurassic Park has problems and it’s not so much that it failed to capture the greatness like the first one, rather it just never had that Steven Spielberg magic, especially when it comes to his adventure flicks. I’d be lying if I didn’t say I had fun with this movie because I genuinely had fun with this movie. It is a bit jarring to not see Sam Neil or Laura Dern in this movie but the presence of Jeff Goldblum makes up for all of that. Even the return of Richard Attenborough as Dr. John Hammond was terrific. The special effects were a sign that CGI was advancing more and more at the time and it even gave us solid and memorable dinosaur action. Even the greatest director of all time will have bad days at the office. I’m not going to call The Lost World: Jurassic Park a bad day at the office for Spielberg, but more so like he had a small cold and still came into work.

#4 Jurassic World Dominion

(Note: this won’t be a full in depth review for Jurassic World Dominion)

Serving as the culmination for the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World era, Jurassic World Dominion was a well concluded wrap up to this franchise. while the movie is littered with terrible supporting characters, an awful villain, a weak script and very odd dialogue deliveries (which is notably Colin Trevorrow‘s biggest weakness as a director and writer), Dominion provides a great deal of emotion, epic dinosaur action, glorious set pieces and tons of thrills and excitement for true fans of this series.The new cast mixed in with the original cast works out pretty marvelously, especially towards the end of the film. Out of all Jurassic Park movies, Dominion might feature the best usages of animatronic dinosaurs and the CGI dinosaurs. Without getting into spoiler territory, there’s one or two dinosaurs in Dominion that had stunned from a spectacle level and from a design perspective. While the franchise could have ended on a stronger note,  this is exactly what it needed to be. It’s no where near as bad as some pundits are suggesting. It’s manages to captures the spirit of the every single movie into one nice little bow.

#3 Jurassic World

Earlier I had mentioned that the people who thrash and put this movie on a pedestal of the worst studio tentpole movies are the stuck up fans of this series. I think fans who went in to Jurassic World were expecting it to somehow surpass the original as be as good and to that, you have no one to blame but yourself. Jurassic World was indeed retreading some very familiar territory, just like The Force Awakens did for Star Wars, and gave it new life with the things that we love about the first movie while giving it that insatiable appetite of the modern lens of a summer blockbuster. It’s a not a perfect movie, an Oscar movie nor is it even as good as the first Jurassic Park, but if there’s one thing that any summer blockbuster should be is fun and Jurassic World is a wildly fun and entertaining walk in the park. It does feature an overdose of nostalgia, but it balances it out well with the new aspects to make it feel more appropriate than the sequels missed on.

#2 Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom 

I saw somewhere on twitter where the Jurassic World trilogy is basically similar to the Star Wars sequel trilogy where the first Jurassic World (The Force Awakens) tells an identical story and retreads familiar ground in order to get the audiences back on board. Then its sequel Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom (The Last Jedi) retroactively challenges the audiences expectations of the franchise by subverting their own notions and providing the best visually looking movie in the franchise. Finally you come its final adventure with Jurassic World Dominion (Rise of Skywalker) where it says away from the previous movie in tone and style and acts more of a sequel to the first of the brand new trilogy. Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom is the best Jurassic Park movie since the first one. I’ll never understaffed the hate this movie gets because it perfectly illustrates the ferocious of dinosaurs and man’s destruction with the invasion of their ecosystem, which thematically what this entire franchise has been about. Its darker, visually stunning, more intense and plays in to the foolishness and greediness of humanity, something that the sequels and even Jurassic World were missing.Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom is also a straight up monster movie once we get to it’s final act. Director J.A. Bayona offers a variety of haunting and beautiful images that are easily the best in the entire franchise. Anyone who calls this the worst Jurassic Park movie need to be reevaluated.

#1 Jurassic Park

Are we really surprised that the first Jurassic Park is number one on this list? The first Jurassic Park is one of the most special movies ever made in Hollywood. This is by far one of Spielberg’s best movies. It’s one of the best studio funded tent poles of any era. The characters, the music, the performances and the marvelous special effects. The scene where we’re first introduced to the T Rex on the bridge is one of the best sequences in any movie. Jurassic Park is an exceptional and gem of a movie that offers wonderful and superb spectacle and scenes of terror and intensity, but also being driven by heart, character and passion. For it being nearly 30 years old, Jurassic Park could be looked at as a movie that was so far ahead of its time that even movies with big budgets and larger set pieces can’t even hold a candle to it.