People love dinosaurs. That reality, and all the money that can be gathered in exploiting that passion, has underscored both the fictional creation of John Hammond’s Jurassic Park and the real-world movie franchise of the same name. Once 1993’s Jurassic Park turned into a smash hit like no other, sequels inevitably followed. That includes a trio of films that made over $1 billion worldwide in the 2010s and 2020s, which showed just how profoundly Jurassic Park had affected culture. Decades after the first movie, those dinosaurs were still bringing people to multiplexes.

However, it’s worth asking, even with such a sterling legacy, which Jurassic Park movies have been the most successful? Ranking the individual titles in this saga by their respective worldwide box office numbers (from lowest to highest grossing) illustrates the enduring appeal of those dinosaurs as well as which movies exemplify the saga’s high and low points.

6) Jurassic Park III

Jurassic Park III represented a new day for Jurassic Park films. Not only was it the first entry in the saga to debut in the 21st century, but it was also the firk Jurassic Park movie not directed by Steven Spielberg. Though it got a more muted reception than its predecessors, Jurassic Park III still grossed $365.9 million worldwide. That was good enough to be 2001’s ninth-biggest movie worldwide, but it’s also by far the lowest-grossing entry in the Jurassic Park saga. Despite that success, it’s still the only installment in the franchise to gross under $500 million globally.

5) The Lost World: Jurassic Park

After Jurassic Park became such a gargantuan sensation, audiences craved more dinosaur mayhem under the watchful eye of Steven Spielberg. Four years later, they got just that with The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Opening over Memorial Day 1997 (making it the only franchise entry to debut in May), The Lost World shattered domestic opening weekend records, a testament to its predecessor’s fanbase. However, the movie’s bleak tone and use of gymnastics against velociraptors didn’t resonate with audiences as profoundly as the first Jurassic Park’s ambiance. This relatively frontloaded (by late ’90s blockbuster standards) sequel eventually grossed $619.63 million worldwide. That was far beneath Jurassic Park’s haul, but it did make The Lost World 1997’s second-biggest movie, sitting behind only Titanic.

4) Jurassic World Dominion

In between Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World Dominion, the world changed radically. The COVID-19 pandemic had severely impacted the entertainment industry, for one thing, and (among countless other ripple effects) caused Dominion to arrive four years after its predeccesor rather than the original three year wait. Even in this health crisis, though, audience kept on hankering to see CG dinosaurs gobble up humans and fight each other. Dominion scored a fantastic $145 million domestic opening weekend that was almost exactly on par with Fallen Kingdom’s $148 million debut. Worldwide, Dominion grossed $1.004 billion. This made Dominion only the third film to exceed $1+ billion globally since COVID-19 shut down theaters in March 2020.

3) Jurassic Park

With Jurassic Park, there was no going back. This Steven Spielberg film was just as much a seismic change for cinema as Jaws was 18 years earlier. Everyone had to see Jurassic Park’s revolutionary visual effects, not to mention its sleek, effortless entertainment. Folks showed up in droves for the entirety of summer 1993 to see this masterpiece, which ensured that Jurassic Park was still making over $1 million each weekend as late as October of that year.

In its original theatrical run, Jurassic Park grossed $914.6 million. Its unstoppable, enduring popularity was reinforced when it secured a 2013 digital 3D theatrical re-release that added $118.19 million to its worldwide gross. Over its multiple releases, Jurassic Park has now grossed $1.1 billion. All hail the titans who once ruled the Earth.

2) Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

Nobody had any expectations that Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom would exceed or even match Jurassic World’s record-shattering success three years earlier. That film rode a momentum of pent-up anticipation for a new Jurassic Park film, not to mention the novelty of seeing a fully operational version of that dinosaur theme park. Even considering that reality, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was a massive hit grossing $1.3 billion worldwide, down just 22% from its predecessor’s massive haul. Impressively, Fallen Kingdom’s international gross was only down roughly 13% from Jurassic World’s international sum, a signal of how globally popular those prehistoric beasts had become.

1) Jurassic World

After 14 years away from multiplexes, Jurassic Park came roaring back into financial dominance with June 2015’s Jurassic World. Even in a decade of summer blockbusters dominated by Star Wars legacy sequels and Marvel superheroes, Jurassic World made a sizable impression Jurassic World grossed $1.67 billion worldwide, becoming summer 2015’s biggest movie by a massive margin including a staggering $653.4 million haul domestically. That global run kicked off with Jurassic World seizing the domestic opening weekend crown. Without one of these movies hitting theaters in so long, there was significant novelty in experiencing dinosaur mayhem on the big screen again.