The most memorable movie dinosaurs outside of the 'Jurassic Park' franchise

The whole hook of The Flintstones is that the humans live alongside dinosaurs. Also talking birds who consider being a can opener a living. This first film adaptation of the cartoon actually works, in part because John Goodman and Rick Moranis play Fred and Barney. The sequel, Viva Rock Vegas, is less of a charmer.

Is it a stretch to call Godzilla a dinosaur? Maybe, but he’s definitely closer to a dinosaur than anything else. Plus, Godzilla is a film icon. That dude has been in dozens of movies in both Japan and the United States. We’re going with the original here, which is still arguably better than both American attempts to reboot the character, especially that woeful 1998 movie.

Hey, if you are making a movie about a journey to the center of the Earth, they can’t just find a molten core and then all burn to death. Instead, they find what is effectively a lost world, one that includes dinosaurs. The 1959 adaptation has James Mason in the lead role, which helps make it stand out.

Sure, Kong is the star of the show, but we remember what’s up on Skull Island. There are dinosaurs there as well — dinosaurs that Kong fights. The old-school special effects of the ‘30s version remains a delight, and King Kong was at the forefront of science-fiction filmmaking.

On paper, goofing on an old but fondly remembered TV show in a Will Ferrell film made sense. Ferrell running around in a world with dinosaurs freaking out? Sure, that makes sense. Unfortunately, execution matters. Land of the Lost was a massive flop, both critically and commercially. However, it also stands out as a memorable example of a flippant nostalgia play going up in flames, and perhaps the nadir of Ferrell’s career.

We bet The Land That Time Forgot worked totally fine in the ‘70s. It has a big adventure at the center of it and a ton of dinosaurs. You know, that kind of C-plus movie that you can catch on cable or on an airplane and you don’t mind it. However, it’s also silly enough that it was riffed on the Netflix version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and that worked as well.

Dinosaur bones count! In the first edition of this Ben Stiller series of films, Stiller’s night watchman character has to deal with all sorts of exhibits coming to life. That includes a T. Rex skeleton, which arguably gets second billing to Stiller across the series.

Ultimately, this movie is remembered for Raquel Welch as a sexy cavewoman in a fur bikini. That’s what the movie was sold on, and that’s what it is remembered for. However, we assure you there are dinosaurs. Specifically, stop-motion dinosaurs animated by the legendary Ray Harryhausen.

Mario is the star of many great video games. We love Mario games. A movie adaptation? Sure, that’s promising. Then, we were delivered this bizarre flop. Dinosaurs were indeed part of the Mario video game universe prior to the film, but Super Mario Brothers really ratcheted up the dinosaur stuff. And yet, King Koopa is played by Dennis Hopper?

A long-forgotten film, in recent years Tammy and the T-Rex has been rediscovered as a “so bad it’s good” cult classic. Also known as Tanny and the Teenage T-Rex, the film also is helped by the fact it stars pre-fame Paul Walker and Denise Richards. When the movie was released, it was a family-friendly comedy, but originally, it was shot as an R-rated horror comedy. This uncut version was rediscovered and released in 2019, which is when the Tammy cult took off.

Whoopi Goldberg is a cop who is paired with a talking dinosaur as a partner. The dinosaur wears sneakers. Theodore Rex is a baffling ‘90s film. In fact, the film was such a bomb that it ended up being released direct-to-video instead of going to theaters, which made it the most-expensive movie to go directly to video at the time.

The Transformers movies are a big, clanging mess even in the best of times. How do you take that up another level? Oh, how about aliens wiping out the dinosaurs, and then also introducing the Dinobots, which are basically the Transformers but dinosaurs. Hey, they had to do something to make this fourth movie stand out.

The Good Dinosaur flew under the radar by the standards of a Pixar film. It wasn’t a hit, but it wasn’t a flop. The Good Dinosaur just sort of dropped, had its time, and then that was that. Having said that, we’re still talking about a Pixar movie, and Pixar does not do small movies. The Good Dinosaur still made $322 million worldwide.

The Ice Age films take place in, well, the Ice Age, a.k.a. a time when dinosaurs were already gone — or were they? Yes, even Ice Age couldn’t resist the urge to do the whole “dinosaurs are secretly alive” thing. It turns out dinosaurs are secretly living in a tropical land below all that ice. Dawn of the Dinosaurs made almost $900 million and is the biggest movie in the franchise, so maybe the hunger for dinosaurs was still there.

Anybody of a certain age definitely remembers The Land Before Time. Littlefoot and company were a big part of childhoods of an era. Of course, The Land Before Time was also helped by the fact they were not afraid to crank out sequels. Like, a ton of sequels. Hoping to keep kids hooked, they made a whopping 13 direct-to-video sequels to The Land Before Time.

You may say a dinosaur toy doesn’t count. We say Rex is the most famous movie dinosaur outside of the Jurassic Park franchise. Plus, he can talk, so he has more personality than any T. Rex or velociraptor from Jurassic Park. Also, he’s voiced by Wallace Shawn. Checkmate.

In the immediate wake of Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg decided to produce an animated, family-friendly dinosaur movie as well. The dude was into dinos at the time, apparently. Of course, these dinosaurs can talk and are friendly. Also, they're in modern times. The dinosaurs are in New York, years before Spielberg dropped a T. Rex into San Diego.

Animation can be weird. You get a bunch of huge stars to provide their voices, a movie gets released, it feels like it doesn’t make a major cultural impact, and then you find out the movie has made almost $600 million and spawned a sequel. That’s the story of The Croods, which features the voice of Nicolas Cage and a bunch of prehistoric creatures hanging out with cave folk.

Roger Corman had the rights to the book Carnosaur, and then he saw Jurassic Park roaring into production. He decided to fast track a cheap movie to get it out the same year as something of counter-programming, what became known as a “mockbuster.” It more than doubled its $850,000 budget and got a few decent reviews, so Corman ended up churning out a few sequels as well.

The VelociPastor is a bit polarizing, because it’s “so bad it’s good,” but on purpose. The movie is intentionally trying to be bonkers and goofy and to not entirely hang together. In short, it’s in on the joke, but does that take away from the fun? Or does it add to it? Oh, and this is a movie about a pastor who can turn into a velociraptor, by the way. Enough people have enjoyed the experience to give the movie cult status.