7 Underrated Dinosaur Movies You’ve Probably Forgotten About

If there’s one drawback to the popularity of the Jurassic Park movies, it’s that they’ve cornered the market on dinosaur features. Nobody else in Hollywood wants to make big-budget dinosaur movies out of fear of coming off as pale imitators of these beloved titles. In a perfect world, movie theaters would be crawling with dinosaur titles. They’d be as inescapable as microbudget horror films or superhero blockbusters. Alas, in the world we inhabit, there’s a dearth of dinosaur cinema. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t other dinosaur movies worth checking out. In fact, there are seven dinosaur movies in particular that you may have forgotten about but are still very much worth seeking out.

Turns out that John Hammond’s theme park and legacy don’t have a monopoly on the world of dinosaur moviemaking.

Tammy and the T-Rex

Think you’ve seen it all in major filmmaking? Just wait until you get a load of Tammy and the T-Rex, an absolutely unhinged production starring Paul Walker as a teenager who gets his brain put into the body of a robotic T-Rex. Attempts to reunite with his human love interest (Denise Richards) and long sock-puppet T-Rex arms ensue. An incredibly gory enterprise (depending on which cut you watch), Tammy and the T-Rex wears its outlandish impulses on its sleeve admirably. Plus, there’s truly no other movie like it. Lackluster Jurassic World sequels could stand to take some narrative cues from Tammy’s imagination.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth

Stop-motion dinosaurs are just so much more endearing and captivating than the digitized dinos of 2013’s Walking with Dinosaurs or 2022’s 65. For proof of this, just look at the 1970 feature When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, a Victoria Vetri star vehicle that’s faded into obscurity. However, it does have a standout character in the form of a green baby dinosaur who captures your heart every time they’re on screen. This cuddly critter just wouldn’t be so irresistible if it were filtered through CGI.

Stop-motion wizardry gives When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth both its scene-stealing star and reason enough to check this title out.

Land of the Lost

Reviled upon its initial release, 2009’s Land of the Lost‘s mixture of stoner humor and big-budget adventure movie is a jangly mess that entertains more often than it doesn’t. Part of its amiable aesthetic comes from the recurring presence of dinosaurs, including Grumpy the T-Rex (a character hailing from the original Sid & Marty Kroft Land of the Lost TV show). Just imagine how much better subpar Will Ferrell comedies like the Daddy’s Home movies would’ve been if there were constantly prehistoric critters on screen.

[RELATED: The First Jurassic Park Trailer Has No Footage From the Movie and It’s Still Amazing]

The Lost World (1925)

Thanks to the first Jurassic Park sequel being entitled “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” most modern audiences are no longer aware that this feature got its title from the groundbreaking 1925 feature The Lost World.

This landmark in visual effects wizardry brought dinosaurs to the silver screen with unprecedented realism and believability. Though its seams are obvious 100 years later, The Lost World is still a pivotal fantasy yarn that served as the birthing place for all subsequent dinosaur cinema. No wonder the Jurassic Park saga named an installment after this landmark title.

The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists

There’s no shortage of Land Before Time movies out there and most of them just aren’t very good. The Land Before Time IV: Journey Through the Mists certainly doesn’t upend all the limiting conventions of this franchise, but it gets a lot of entertaining mileage out of new baddies Deinosuchus Dil (Tress MacNeille) and Ichthyornis Ichy (Jeff Bennett). The pair briefly belt out a tune entitled “Who Needs You?” entirely dedicated to their seething resentment towards each other that is an absolute riot.

Journey Through the Mists is an otherwise routine Land Before Time installment, but its odd-couple dinosaur villains deserve all the praise in the world.

Gertie the Dinosaur

Even more so than The Lost World, cinema owes a great debt to Gertie the Dinosaur. Running just 12 minutes, 1914’s Gertie short was one of the first animated films in history and a brilliant showcase for the medium’s possibilities. Gertie wasn’t real, yet she seemed so real with her vivid emotional outbursts and endlessly endearing demeanor. Gertie the Dinosaur epitomized how the unreal could become transfixing realities in animation.

Plus, over 110 years later, Gertie’s antics (like randomly dancing, eating a tiny speck that’s actually a pumpkin, or tossing a tiny prehistoric pachyderm into a lake) are still hysterical, while the sight of her crying would shatter the heart of even the most cynical moviegoer. Forget the Minions, so long Shrek; Gertie the Dinosaur is the champion among animated cinema icons.

The Velocipastor

Most pastiches of old-school B-movies get old after just five minutes. Trying to recreate or skewer the spontaneous creative energy that led to masterpieces like The Miami Connection is just a fool’s errand. The Velocipastor, though, is an inspired deviation from that norm. Carved from the legacy of ’80s and ’90s schlock, writer/director Brendan Steere delivers a story (concerning a priest who turns into a violent Velociraptor) rife with great, hysterical jokes (particularly one perfectly executed third-act flashback montage) rather than just hollow echoes of other B-movies.

The Velocipastor soars as just a delightful standalone movie for all audiences that also contains extra layers of enjoyment (like a climactic Miami Connection homage) for B-movie connoisseurs. Steere’s craftsmanship delivers a title that fully delivers on preposterous comedy and dinosaur mayhem, with the latter element especially coming to goofy yet endearing life in an unforgettable finale. Your days of praying for more quality dinosaur cinema are over now that The Velocipastor is here.

What are your favorite dinosaur movies that aren’t Jurassic Park? Let us know in the comments below!