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RKO Radio Pictures

Before Kong ever climbs the Empire State Building, the film crew on Skull Island runs into a whole lost world of dinosaurs, including a famous fight between Kong and a T. rex.

• Special effects: Willis O’Brien’s stop-motion animation
• Fun fact: Its stop-motion dinosaurs inspired generations of animators, including Ray Harryhausen.

Walt Disney Productions

The “Rite of Spring” segment sets the story of life on Earth to Igor Stravinsky’s music, from the first living things to the age of the dinosaurs and their extinction.

• Music: The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky
• Fun fact: Its most famous moment is a Tyrannosaurus battling a Stegosaurus.

Hammer Films

Cavemen and dinosaurs share a prehistoric world (scientists would object) in this adventure starring Raquel Welch.

• Special effects: Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion animation
• Fun fact: Its poster of Raquel Welch in a fur bikini became one of the most famous movie images of the ’60s.

Touchstone Pictures

A paleontologist couple in Africa discovers a living family of sauropods, and races to protect the baby dinosaur from people who want to capture it.

• Starring: William Katt and Sean Young

Universal / Sullivan Bluth Studios

After losing his mother, a young Apatosaurus named Littlefoot leads a group of young dinosaurs on a journey to the Great Valley.

• Directed by: Don Bluth
• Produced by: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, among others
• Fun fact: It was followed by 13 direct-to-video sequels and a TV series.

Universal Pictures

A theme park of cloned dinosaurs on a remote island goes terribly wrong during a preview tour, in Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster based on Michael Crichton’s novel.

• Directed by: Steven Spielberg
• Fun fact: Its mix of computer-generated dinosaurs and Stan Winston’s life-size animatronics won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects.

Amblimation

A group of dinosaurs is made smart by a time-traveling inventor and brought to modern-day New York, where they meet two kids.

• Voice of Rex: John Goodman
• Based on: the picture book by Hudson Talbott

New Line Cinema

A detective (Whoopi Goldberg) is partnered with a talking Tyrannosaurus in a futuristic world where dinosaurs have been brought back.

• Fun fact: Despite its big budget, it skipped theaters in the U.S. and went straight to video.

Walt Disney Pictures

An Iguanodon raised by lemurs joins a herd of dinosaurs searching for new nesting grounds after a meteor shower destroys their home.

• Fun fact: Its computer-animated dinosaurs were placed into real filmed landscapes.