DVD
Upcoming Release Calendar
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Recent DVD/Video Releases
65
Adoration
42
Aliens in the Attic
56
American Violet
44
Answer Man, The
82
Anvil! The Story of Anvil![]()
54
Bruno
55
Casi Divas
63
Cheri
83
Drag Me to Hell![]()
24
Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
76
Every Little Step
70
Fados
49
Food Beware: The French Organic Revolution
80
Food, Inc.
74
Humpday
32
I Love You, Beth Cooper
50
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
81
Il Divo![]()
54
Is Anybody There?
32
Land of the Lost
74
Lemon Tree
40
Limits of Control, The
43
Love 'N Dancing
63
Medicine for Melancholy
34
My Life in Ruins
51
My Sister's Keeper
48
Not Forgotten
76
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
50
Nothing Like the Holidays
26
Objective, The
42
Orphan
78
Pray the Devil Back to Hell
48
Proposal, The
39
Spread
83
Star Trek![]()
55
Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, The
72
Thirst
35
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
28
Ugly Truth, The
66
Unmistaken Child
88
Up![]()
45
Whatever Works
34
Year One
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Jurassic Park

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 20 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 45 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Michael Crichton (also novel)
David Koepp
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Release Date:
Theatrical: June 11, 1993
DVD: December 11, 2001
Running Time: 127 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13
Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Bob Peck, Martin Ferrero, B.D. Wong, and Joseph Mazzello
Featuring incredible special effects and action-packed drama, Jurassic Park takes you to a remote island where an amazing theme park with living dinosaurs is about to turn deadly, as five people must battle to survive among the prehistoric predators. (Universal Pictures)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Empire of the Sun Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Jurassic Park III The Color Purple The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle
One great monster movie. [11 June 1993, Daily Notebook, p.C1]
Empire Caroline Westbrook
So the script and the performances aren't exactly Oscar material, but it scarcely matters given that the real stars here are the ILM-created dinosaurs, a miracle of modern moviemaking.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
As a flight of fantasy, Jurassic Park lacks the emotional unity of Spielberg's classics ("Jaws," "Close Encounters," "E.T."), yet it has enough of his innocent, playful virtuosity to send you out of the theater grinning with delight.
Read Full Review >Time Richard Corliss
For dinosaurs to rule the earth again, the monsters needed majesty as well as menace. And Spielberg got it all right. [14 June 1993, p.69]
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Colossal entertainment -- the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year.
Read Full Review >USA Today Mike Clark
Spielberg's must-see is so wondrous at depicting things that go crunch in the night that its human characterizations and pokey exposition seem astonishingly halfhearted On a "people" level, Park isn't Jaws, but on a jolt level - oh, yes, it is. [11 June 1993, Life, p.1D]
ReelViews James Berardinelli
The biggest weakness of the novel is characterization, and the same flaw is fully evident in the screen adaptation.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Dave Kehr
Given the complexity of attitudes and the ambiguous take on the family represented in such Spielberg films as E.T.'' and Poltergeist,'' the bland affirmations of Jurassic Park seem platitudinous and insincere. He's forcing it here, and it shows. [11 June 1993, Friday, p.A]
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
The movie delivers all too well on its promise to show us dinosaurs. We see them early and often, and they are indeed a triumph of special effects artistry, but the movie is lacking other qualities that it needs even more, such as a sense of awe and wonderment, and strong human story values.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
There's only one kind of movie that Spielberg has truly mastered: the kind that looks like a wide-screen video game complete with loony plot twists and mind-bending special effects. And that's Jurassic Park down to its bones. [11 June 1993, Arts, p.12]
Variety Staff (Not Credited)
Spielberg's scary and horrific thriller may be one-dimensional and even clunky in story and characterization, but definitely delivers where it counts, in excitement, suspense and the stupendous realization of giant reptiles.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Elvis Mitchell
It becomes less crisp on screen than it was on the page, with much of the enjoyable jargon either mumbled confusingly or otherwise thrown away. [11 June 1993, p.C1]
Washington Post Rita Kempley
A dumbed-down adaptation of Michael Crichton's techno-novel on the dangers of dinosaur cloning, it's not Spielberg at the top of his game, but it's dino-mite just the same.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Staff (Non Credited)
An exhilarating, sometimes terrifying monster of a movie that, once it gets you in its clutches, won't put you down again until the closing credits start to roll.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
I continually found myself longing for the sheer intensity of the director's past glories, like Jaws, or even Duel. Spielberg seems to be trying so very hard for that elusive Gosh, Wow, Sense of Wonder! that it all looks strained in spots.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
The suspense and technical wizardry are the only reason to watch Jurassic Park. In a summer movie, that's more than enough, of course. But screenwriter Michael Crichton, adapting his popular novel with David Koepp, slashes almost everything that made the book an entertaining read.
Read Full Review >The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann
The results make poor old King Kong look like something from a Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Such is progress. [12 July 1993, p.26]
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
All the imagination and effort (including 18 months of pre-production) that went into making the dinosaurs state-of-the-art exciting apparently left no time to make the people similarly believable or involving. In fact, when the big guys leave the screen, you'll be tempted to leave the theater with them. [11 June 1993, Calendar, p.F-1]
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
There's more soul to be found in any Kong close-up than in this film's overplayed reactions, which are used to instruct us what we should be feeling at any given moment. This is never boring, but I can't recall another Spielberg film that left me with a more hollow feeling.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jay Scott
Perfectly passable kiddie escapism. It has a thrill or two, and a chill or three, but it has no poetry, little sense of wonder, no resonant subtext (Jungian or otherwise), no art... When it's over, it's gone. Extinct.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.5 (out of 10) based on 45 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
One of the best films ever also because the bazz around it... and it's just a great film.. the scary parts are scary the action is good and the dramatical parts are touching... it's not a masterpiece but it's great and fun!!!
[Anonymous] gave it a9:
One of the best films ever also because the buzz around it... and it's just a great film.. the scary parts are scary the action is good and the dramatic parts are touching... it's not a masterpiece but it's great and fun!!!
Titanium Dragon gave it a9:
Frankly, this movie is grealty underrated by critics, which just goes to show that while critics sometimes hit, sometimes they miss as well. While it is true that Titanic was awful, and made more money than it ever deserved to, ten years later no one remembers it. People remember Jurassic Park. The reality is that Jurassic Park was the beginning of an era. Up to that point, no one had done something nearly so ambitious. The effort gone into making the movie shows; the dinosaurs look amazing, and this movie pulls off something VERY few movies have done - seamless CG. The dinosaurs look like they're really there, and you can't tell when they're using animatronics and when they're using CG. Its amazing, and the movie is a visual masterpiece. Indeed, I would go so far as to argue that no movie since has managed the same level of realism with their CG monsters, simply because everyone is lazy. Comparing this to later movies, such as the new Star Wars movies, makes the Star Wars movies look dated and amateurish. But its not JUST the dinosaurs and their wonderful visuals. Its also a very solid plotline of man doing things with science, and due to arrogance get in real trouble. Sadly, it doesn't contain some of the awesome plotpoints of the book which underscore this, such as their automated tracking system which has an internal cap as to how many dinosaurs it would display because they only assumed that the number of dinosaurs could go down, not up. Sadly, this plot point is lost, so the hubris is lessened. Even so, while this movie isn't the best in terms of plot, it manages to be a great movie. While not a 10, its a 9 - a movie that everyone should see, because it is that good. Some of the characters aren't that great, but others are excellent, and overall the movie is a great effort and is fun to watch. In the end, a movie like this exists to entertain and maybe make people think about some possiblities, and this movie accomplishes both.
Byron J. gave it a10:
The Best Film of the 90's
Johnny S gave it a10:
A pure masterpiece! This is one of the greatest movies of all time. It may not have absolutely fantastic actors but the graphic effects and sound department definitely make up for it's loss! Nothing like this had ever been made at the time, which makes it even more special, it still amazes me today.
Antti gave it a5:
Very generic action film with novelty effects. watchable once, but mostly boring.
Eric J gave it a0:
The most overrated movie of all time.
