Ever since the birth of film, producers and directors have known that dinosaurs—the more vicious and realistic, the better—are big box office. Here’s my choice of the top five dino movies of all time (if you email me and make a convincing case for your favorites, I’ll add them to the list).
1. Gorgo (1961)
A direct homage to King Kong—let’s not be so unkind as to call it a ripoff—this rousing flick is about a sea captain who tows a huge dino-like creature back to London to star in the circus. In the end, it turns out that the humongous Gorgo has a much more humongous (and righteously ticked-off) mom, who topples Big Ben in the course of freeing her child.
2. King Kong (2005)
Peter Jackson’s remake of King Kong is consistently excellent, but it really kicks into high gear when Kong does battle with three—count ‘em, three—Venatosaurus Rexes (cousins of the more familiar T. Rex at the same time. There’s also a great Brontosaurus stampede, in which one of the lumbering beasts takes a tight turn too fast and tumbles off a cliff.3. Godzilla (1956)
This first, English-language Godzilla is a poorly dubbed version of the Japanese original of 1954, with Raymond Burr spliced in as an American reporter. It won’t win any awards for special effects or production values, but the fact remains that it has more heart than any of the subsequent Godzilla remakes (least of all the goofy 1998 version by Independence Day director Roland Emmerich).4. Jurassic Park (1993)
This Steven Spielberg blockbuster doesn’t have much in the way of narrative—first the characters are here, and then they’re there, and oh yeah, there are lots of dinosaurs between point A and point B. What it does have is astonishing special effects, with some of the most realistic dinos (such as the gentle Brachiosauruses seen grazing in the distance) ever displayed on screen up to that time.
