How Many ‘Jurassic Park’ Movies Are There and Where Can You Stream Them?

RATING: PG-13

DIRECTED BY: Colin Trevorrow

WRITTEN BY: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly, Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver

CAST: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Ty Simpkins, Nick Robinson, Vincent D’Onofrio

The biggest Jurassic Park sequel of all time brought the series roaring back and is also, in retrospect, the shoddiest of the bunch. It begins with a killer concept: Many years after the original Jurassic Park debacle, someone went ahead and built a dinosaur theme park anyway, and… it worked! At least for the moment; naturally, the movie chronicles how it all goes wrong again, and how dinosaurs running amok in a fully operational theme park is much, much worse than the same thing happening during an early test run. But the movie also gets cocky, introducing Owen Grady (Chris Pratt) as Indiana Jones x Hooper from Jaws minus any endearing nerdiness; instead, he’s played as an unambiguously cool-as-hell man’s man who somehow enthralls even an imperiled teenage boy (Nick Robinson) who’s too jaded to care about dinosaurs. The whole movie gives off a bizarre maleness, remaking the original while making its female lead Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) a career gal who needs to be taught a lesson (how dare she not be deeply involved in the lives of her nephews who live thousands of miles away!) and switching a boy-girl pair of siblings to a pair of boys (the elder of which is deeply unlikable). The movie is plenty entertaining because of the sheer variety of dinos on display, but it’s hard to get over how the only really enjoyable character is a Jurassic Park control-room fanboy played by Jake Johnson. If Guardians of the Galaxy made it seem like Chris Pratt could be a movie star, this is the one that offered a swift “not so fast!”

sTREAM Jurassic World ON Tubi

RATING: PG-13

DIRECTED BY: Colin Trevorrow

WRITTEN BY: Colin Trevorrow, Emily Carmichael, Derek Connolly

CAST: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum

Probably the least-loved of the Jurassic movies (certainly of the newer trilogy), this entry loses points for only partially capitalizing on the mic-drop turn of its predecessor, which unleashed dinosaurs upon the world at large, not just an island theme park. On the other hand, it does have an elaborate dino-and-motorcycle chase through Malta and the other stuff it focuses on, including prehistoric-sized locusts, is gets some points for being extremely remisicent of Michael Crichton despite not being based on one of his books. Really, the movie is at its worst when it tries to pay extended homage to the original film with the original cast and newer characters all together in an unwieldy band. It’s at its best when it gets weird.

Stream Jurassic world Dominon on Peacock

RATING: PG-13

DIRECTED BY: Joe Johnston

WRITTEN BY: Peter Buchman, Alexander Payne, Jim Taylor

CAST: Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola

The most negligible of the Jurassic movies is this smaller-scale threequel, part of a whole disappointing summer-2001 slate of movies that were impacted by a then-impending Hollywood writers’ strike (which didn’t actually wind up happening). That’s probably why this movie just kind of stops rather than formulating a genuine ending. But as a fleet-footed 90-minute jungle adventure where Alan Grant gets tricked into leading a rescue mission for some lost kids, it gets the job done. This means introducing new species of dinosaurs to menace the dumb humans — though the T. rex-killing Spinosaurus ultimately isn’t as cool as a flock of Pteranodons — and spending plenty of time with the beloved raptors, who were somewhat sidelined in the first sequel.

Stream Jurassic Park III on peacock

RATING: PG-13

DIRECTED BY: J.A. Bayona

WRITTEN BY: Colin Trevorrow, Derek Connolly

CAST: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Justice Smith, Rafe Spall

The underrated best of the Jurassic World trilogy, Fallen Kingdom flouts the other two movies’ fidelity to the original film by gleefully zig-zagging, from a save-the-dinos premise to a volcano eruption on the site of the Jurassic World theme park to a third act that’s more of a bonkers haunted-house movie than a traditional jungle adventure picture. It’s very silly and strange; it’s also the only one of these three linked Jurassic World movies shot by someone who has real facility with imagery. Director J.A. Bayona isn’t quite Spielberg level, but his use of shadows, smoke, and fire give the film a more painterly touch than anything Colin Trevorrow manages in the entries that bookend it.

Stream Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom on Peacock

RATING: PG-13

DIRECTED BY: Gareth Edwards

WRITTEN BY: David Koepp

CAST: Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, Jonathan Bailey, Rupert Friend

Compared to the wilder swings of the last two Jurassic World movies, Rebirth is practically traditionalist, resetting the story with new characters and a less outlandish status quo than Dominion. That might sound a bit cynically retro, even conservative-minded, but it’s in service of a sturdily made adventure movie/creature feature, with more immediately likable characters than just about anyone in the last three pictures. Scarlett Johansson, Mahershala Ali, and Jonathan Bailey all have easy movie-star charm (especially ScarJo, natch) as part of a team hired to retrieve dino DNA from an abandoned research facility where scientists were doing some of their trademark tinkering. The promise of crazy mutant dinos is less foregrounded than you might hope, but Rebirth generates fun set pieces at a regular clip, highlighting Edwards’ playful sense of scale and perspective. It’s sort of an enhanced version of Jurassic Park III, and arguably the most stand-alone movie since the first one.

RATING: PG-13

DIRECTED BY: Steven Spielberg

WRITTEN BY: David Koepp

CAST: Jeff Goldblum, Julianne Moore, Pete Postlethwaite, Vince Vaughn

Look, you can’t beat the king, and Spielberg is the king of working the hell out of a genre exercise when called upon. At the time of its release, The Lost World: Jurassic Park was received almost universally as inferior to the original movie, and while it probably is, there are certain aspects of it that are actually superior, namely the number of people who get eaten by dinosaurs. Now, in Jurassic World, the increased body count feels a little cruel, but in the hands of a master like Spielberg, the increased carnage is so beautifully choreographed that it’s hard not to laugh in delight at the havoc he’s unleashing. “Site B,” the island where dinos have been allowed to run wild, provides ample opportunity for a returning Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) to issue pithy one-liners and warnings, as well as, most importantly, dinos to pick off unsuspecting military-style guys. Pete Postlethwaite is also on hand as a droll big-game hunter, and multiple set pieces deserve a spot on the Spielberg highlight reel. This is basically his dinosaur version of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: a little dumber, a lot meaner, and all-around terrific filmmaking.

Stream The Lost World on Peacock

RATING: PG-13

DIRECTED BY: Steven Spielberg

WRITTEN BY: David Koepp

CAST: Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough

I mean, you know. Along with Titanic, this was one of the last true played-forever, took-over-a-year-to-hit-VHS cultural-ubiquity blockbusters, and a stone-cold classic to anyone born between the years 1980 and 1990, at minimum. Spielberg has made more incisive creature features, and ones with better characters, but as a pure technical achievement in movie magic, in conjuring the illusion of living dinosaurs using CG and animatronics, it’s hard to beat the original Jurassic Park. Maybe impossible.

Stream Jurassic Park on Peacock