Top 10 Movie Dinosaurs: CCC Issue #87

The Greatest Cinematic Dinosaurs of All-Time

 

When I originally launched this blog all the way back in December 2013 it was with the main premise that I would count down movies and TV shows, but over the years I’ve diversified and expanded…and somehow I haven’t done a countdown list since October 2020! It’s time to go back to my roots, and since I’ve had dinosaurs on the brain with the new Jurassic World Dominion finally coming out this summer, what better topic to bring back the classic CCC lists with than the greatest cinematic dinosaurs of all-time! 

 

Honourable mention: Godzilla

Even though he’s not a real dinosaur, Big G is one of the most iconic movie monsters, and his saurian roots have never been forgotten. In fact, they were embraced a little too strongly in TriStar’s American remake, turning him into more of an anemic lizard than an atomic beast, but from the beginning the Japanese kaiju has been identified as a combination of Tyrannosaurus rex, Stegosaurus, and Iguanodon. Having starred in decades-worth of films, as well as left an impact on pop culture as large as his giant footprint, you really can’t take an honest look at dinosaur cinema and not at least acknowledge the King of the Monsters.

 

10. Megalosaurus – When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)

The Megalosaurus was a real species of dinosaur, and bears the distinction of being one of the very first to be discovered and described. However, the fossil evidence for the creature has been scarce, so what it looked like, exactly, has been largely hypothetical. One of the first artist renderings depicted is as a bulky, quadrupedal creature–not a very accurate guess, but it seems to have served as the inspiration for the design in When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. While it may not be very close in appearance to the real Megalosaurus or any other known species, this cinematic dino is more than just an overgrown lizard. It’s one of the largest creatures in the film, first seen bringing a deer to its newborn young in the nest. The stop motion effects are wonderfully done, and it gets a decent amount of screen time, including some memorable interactions with the cavemen characters. 

 

9. Brachiosaurus – Jurassic Park series (1993-2022)

The first dinosaur from the Jurassic Park franchise on this list, and not the last, either. It would be easy to fill every spot with Jurassic dinos (or do an entire list of just Jurassic dinos…which may or may not be coming soon…), but the Long-Neck Brachiosaurus deserves a spot on this list for more reasons than just being the first resurrected park resident seen and making Dr. Grant stagger to his knees in awe. The Brach shows up again after multiple scenes of mayhem when Dr. Grant and the kids are sleeping in the tree. There is a whole herd of these massive herbivores, and one of them gets close enough to be fed. It reminds us that even though some of the escaped creatures on Isla Nublar want to eat people, some don’t. They’re all still animals, and the Brach demonstrates this better than any other species. From the giant animatronic head to the cgi, it’s the best-looking Long-Neck of any dinosaur film. It might not be the first herbivore most people think of when they think of the franchise, but it outranks all the others, for me. 

 

8. Allosaurus – One Million Years B.C. (1966)

The Allosaurus is my favourite dinosaur of all, so of course I had to give it a spot on this list. When looking at all the vicious meat-eaters from a myriad of dinosaur movies, there are some obvious choices that appear closer to the top, but the Allosaurus from Hammer’s remake of One Million B.C. is an underrated one in the discussion among dino-movie fans, and it gets a great scene which showcases just how vicious it is, even though it’s much smaller in size than a full-grown adult would have been. The first time I saw this scene I was riveted; it kills some cavemen before battling others with spears, and eventually gets impaled and dies in a very dramatic, violent way. Ray Harryhausen made this stop motion killer, and is responsible for some of the greatest stop motion cinematic dinosaurs. 

 

7. Aladar – Dinosaur (2000)

It’s tough to pick a favourite dino from Disney’s Dinosaur. I almost picked the Carnotaurus, but I have to give it to the plant-eating protagonist that carries the whole movie: Aladar the Iguanodon. Never before had Iguanodon been so realistically portrayed in a film, which might sound surprising given these dinosaurs have the classic big Disney eyes and speak, with fully articulated lips. Those details aside, Aladar’s posture and proportions are quite spot-on, and he’s a pretty charming lead. His naivete isn’t too annoying, he’s emotive as well as combative, and the cgi to bring him to life holds up better than most other dinosaur films from the late ‘90’s/early 2000’s. He has a great roar (one of the better and more realistic examples for an herbivore), a great presence, and in terms of dinosaurs that transcend their movie monster roots and become full-fledged characters, he’s easily one of the top-ranking.

 

6. Brontosaurus – The Lost World (1925)

This is the oldest dinosaur on this list, but even though the stop motion effects are dated, the Brontosaurus is still an impressive feat of movie magic. First of all, it has a great fight with an Allosaurus, biting it on the throat, then it falls off a huge cliff! You think it’s dead for a while, but the explorers discover it’s still alive, and bring it back to London, where it gets to go on an all-out rampage. These London scenes really cement it as one of the greats in dinosaur cinema: it’s a foreboding force, and would inspire many other filmmakers for a number of decades to follow. Of all the Long-Neck dinosaurs, this one remains one of the most destructive, memorable, and impressive.

 

5. The Great Valley Friends – The Land Before Time Series (1988-2016)

I couldn’t pick just one, because each and every young prehistoric protagonist in The Land Before Time has contributed to the enduring popularity of so many different species for multiple generations of kids and parents. There’s the classic Long-Neck, “Little Foot” who takes the lead role, “Cera” the Three-Horn Triceratops, “Ducky” The Duck-Billed Saurolophus, her non-biological brother “Spike” the Stegosaurus, and the only non-dinosaur member of the friend group, “Petrie” the flying Pteranodon. Even just looking at the first movie, they are appealing characters for children and unique as far as cinematic dinos go. Their enduring popularity meant more and more sequels (though all were direct-to-video), giving some of the other species besides the Long-Neck a chance to get more of a spotlight. With every sequel came new friends and new foes, and in terms of animation, no other cast of dinosaurs has had the same lasting impact.

 

4. Gwangi – The Valley of Gwangi (1969)

This would mark Ray Harryhausen’s peak in bringing to life dinosaurs for the big screen. Gwangi is more than just a big meat-eater, he’s the most ferocious resident of the Forbidden Valley, and a whole crew of cowboys on horses with lassos can’t bring him down. The wrangling scene is one of the most impressive combinations of stop motion effects and live-action actors ever seen. Gwangi is a brute; he kills a fast-running ornithomimid, then a hulking Styracosaurus, and as soon as that Styracosaurus is dead he immediately pursues the cowboys. It’s not about hunger for him! He kills a couple cowboys, too, and after they bring the carnivore back to civilization, he breaks out of his cage and kills an elephant! Gwangi has a great snarl, swishing tail, and is the pinnacle of cinematic dinosaurs from this era. The movie he’s in may be silly at times, but he’s the real star, and that’s why his name is in the title.

 

3. Velociraptor – Jurassic Park series (1993-2022)

Everyone thought they knew what to expect from a dinosaur movie before Jurassic Park came out, but it completely changed the public’s perception of the terrible lizards and made them into more than just movie monsters. Everyone had seen T. rex before, but no one had seen anything quite like the Velociraptor, and its impact was immediate and palpable. The scariest thing about the raptor was its intelligence. There were ways to avoid T. rex, but the raptors hunted in packs, they were fast, sneaky, creative, and wicked. The combination of Stan Winston’s animatronics and puppetry with ILM’s computer generated effects made them a force to be reckoned with. The lead raptor, known by fans as “The Big One” led the charge in the original movie, and she had attitude and character. The way she clicks her sickle claw on the kitchen floor as she’s stalking the kids gets me every time. Only the combined genius of Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, and Stan Winston could have made a dinosaur smaller than T. rex into something even scarier.   

 

2. The Meat-Eater – King Kong (1933)

Every dinosaur on Skull Island is awesome, and picking just one for this list is kind of hard. The Meat-Eater (sometimes referred to as a T. rex, sometimes referred to as an Allosaurus) was the only one brave (or dumb) enough to take on Kong himself, though. Hold up, you may be saying, what about the serpentine creature in the cave that almost strangled Kong to death, or the Pterandon that nearly pecked his eyes out? Both of those creatures aren’t technically dinosaurs (plesiosaurs were marine reptiles and pterosaurs were flying reptiles), but it doesn’t matter, because no other scene is as re-watchable or as jaw-dropping as the fight between The Eighth Wonder of the World and the Tyrant Lizard King. The Meat-Eater has so much character right from the first moment it comes through the trees, making its raspy roar and reaching up with its tiny arm to scratch its chin.

I also want to give a special shout-out to all the weird and wonderful occupants of Peter Jackson’s reimagined Skull Island from his remake of King Kong. Even though the computer generated effects don’t hold up quite as well comparatively, they stand out as some of the best non-Jurassic Park cinematic dinos of the 2000’s and are fearsome and amazing in their own ways.

 

1. Tyrannosaurus rex – Jurassic Park series (1993-2022)

What did you think number one would be, Theodore Rex? As far as being the #1 most realistic dinosaur in scientific terms, the Tyrannosaurus rex in Jurassic Park does not win. I don’t know which dinosaur would actually get that award, because even in 1993, Rexy’s design wasn’t exactly in-line with the most up-to-date paleontological research. The hands are not pronated, the teeth are too exposed, the skull shape isn’t quite right, and it’s a little lean, but inaccuracies aside, this dinosaur is truly the most-impressive in terms of the effects to bring it to life, the presence it has in multiple films, and the legacy it has spawned.

If the T. rex didn’t work, the whole movie wouldn’t have worked, but Spielberg knew how to make Rexy scary before even showing her, with those footsteps making ripples in the glass of water, then when she’s finally shown, it’s Stan Winston’s jaw-dropping life-sized animatronic, followed by a shot of the full animal, rendered in cgi, breaking through the fence. It was the combination of great writing, skillful direction, ambitious special effects, music, sound, and cinematography that all came together in just the right way to give the most famous dinosaur of all-time its greatest role in any film. Rexy set a new standard for dinosaurs in movies, and unlike many other examples on this list, has yet to be surpassed in terms of realism, dynamism, and its ability to generate pure, gob smacked terror.