Jurassic World Dominion, which rounds off the Jurassic World trilogy, hit theatres on June 10. While the latest offering from filmmaker Colin Trevorrow has us fans excited, here’s some good news for those who love to explore the prehistoric world when dinosaurs roamed this planet. We bring you a list of films on prehistoric creatures that combine live-action and animation, without which your dino flick binge is incomplete.
The Land Before Time (1988)
With Steven Spielberg and George Lucas as its executive producers, The Land Before Time set up the animated world of Littlefoot and his friends. It’s a tale that charts the journey of a baby Apatosaurus (Littlefoot) and other dinosaurs as they look for an oasis known as the Great Valley. It explores the innocent friendship between Littlefoot, Cera the Triceratops, Ducky the Saurolophus, Petrie the Pteranodon and Spike the Stegosaurus. These beloved characters feature in 13 more movies, the last of which came out in 2016. However, to see where it all starts off, the 1988 film is the one.
Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie (2013)
Set in the Late Cretaceous period (around 70 million years ago), Walking with Dinosaurs: The Movie features computer-animated dinosaurs in a live-action setting. The BBC Earth film created a fantasy world where Patchi the Pachyrhinosaurus struggles to find his place. The underdog story revolves around the smallest dinosaur in the litter, who is “destined for greatness”, and is a visual delight.
Dinosaur (2000)
Another computer-animated live-action film that is a treat for the eyes, this was a collaboration between Walt Disney Feature Animation and The Secret Lab. Dinosaur follows the story of Aladar the Iguanodon. Aladar and his adoptive prehistoric lemur family are forced to join a herd of refugee dinosaurs after a meteor crash destroys their home. This dinosaur with zero dinosaur skills tries to find his place among his kind, much like a prehistoric version of Tarzan.
The Good Dinosaur (2015)
The Pixar-Walt Disney production sticks to its familiar formula of creating a young relatable character who we cannot help but love… and then kills off a parent. As if our hearts were not wrecked enough when Bambi’s mother died in Bambi (1942) or Mufasa died in The Lion King (1994), Disney had to kill off Arlo the Apatosaurus’ father in The Good Dinosaur (2015) as well!
Apart from its extreme tear-jerking moments, the movie is a heart-warming story of friendship and finding courage. The Good Dinosaur is an interesting take on a world where the dinosaurs escaped extinction and evolved to become as intelligent as humans.
Land of the Lost (2009)
If campy movies are your thing, then Land of the Lost featuring dinosaurs, time warp and lizard people is the ideal light watch for you. The 2009 movie stars Will Ferrell and Anna Friel in the lead. The dinosaurs depicted, in the land that Will’s character Rick Marshall travels to, are intelligent beings. Rick manages to insult a Tyrannosaurus named Grumpy by calling him “stupid” but is eventually able to befriend him. While dinosaurs are not the lead characters in this movie, they play a major role, much like they do in the Jurassic series.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009)
After saving an early human baby and surviving an apocalyptic flood, Diego the Smilodon, Manny the woolly mammoth and Sid the giant ground sloth enter the secret realm of surviving dinosaurs in this 2009 film. With Sid abducted by the mother of the Tyrannosaurus rex babies that he found, his friends go on a mission to save him. In Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, the motley crew come across a land frozen in time where dinosaurs still live. This movie set up the world which was again seen in the 2022 spin-off film Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild.
