13 Movies Like Jurassic World Dominion You Should Definitely Check Out

"Jurassic World Dominion" is a fitting end to the second Jurassic trilogy. After "Jurassic World" took fans back to the beginning for a metatextual, self-aware reboot, Universal Pictures knew it had a winner on its hands. At the time of its release, "Jurassic World" had the largest opening weekend ever. While its follow-up, "Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom," was divisive — and "Dominion" seems poised to follow a similar path — the latest installment in the franchise is awash in fan service and monstrous dinos, and delivers both action thrills and nostalgic chills in spades.

In light of the film's tyrannosaurus-sized legacy, we've rounded up 13 movies fans of the latest entry's dino DNA should definitely check out. The "Jurassic Park" franchise has always had something for everyone, offering up both mature ruminations on existential themes and accessible action beats. Accordingly, these recommendations range from dour post-apocalyptic morality plays to more family-friendly adventure offerings. All of these 13 titles, though, expand on the best of what "Dominion" and its quasi-apocalyptic finale have to offer.

Alfonso Cuarón's post-apocalyptic sci-fi masterpiece isn't for the faint of heart, even before the movie's seminal, single-shot finale. In "Children of Men," Clive Owen stars as Theo Feron, a former activist and current bureaucrat who reluctantly agrees to help a militant activist group thanks to his estranged wife, Julian (Julianne Moore). The year is 2027, and the world is ravaged by complete infertility, jeopardizing population growth and augmenting an already untenable immigration crisis. Theo is tasked with protecting Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), an asylum seeker and the world's first pregnant woman in 18 years.

"Children of Men" is considerably more adult-oriented than "Jurassic World Dominion," though it retains the latter's interest in exploring humanity's roots using science fiction. While an infertility plague is ostensibly more grounded than reincarnated dinosaurs, neither yet exist, and both are profound foundations for compelling, frightening, and ultimately hopeful apocalyptic scenarios. Older fans of the "Jurassic" series will definitely want to check this one out after leaving the "Dominion" auditorium.

The rebooted "Planet of the Apes" trilogy has never quite received the acclaim it deserves. Despite being a critical and financial success, the second installment in the series, "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," doesn't quite dominate the zeitgeist the same way that the likes of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and "Jurassic World" do. That's a shame, really, since "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" is arguably the strongest blockbuster released this century.

Set 10 years after the events of the first film, the simian flu has all but wiped out the human population, with the introductory exposition estimating that only one in 500 people are immune to the disease. Resultantly, the global landscape has changed considerably, with survivors living in fortified territories absent modern amenities. Meanwhile, the ape colony led by Andy Serkis' Caesar (a true marvel of motion capture) flourishes in the burgeoning wilderness. Soon, the humans, including characters played by Jason Clarke and Keri Russell, must seek assistance from the apes. There are double-crosses, hidden motives, and enough pathos to reduce the most resolute audience members to blubbering messes. It's a bona fide masterpiece, and while it's much grittier than the likes of "Jurassic World Dominion," both films envision two distinct versions of a world run wild.

"Love and Monsters" was an unfortunate casualty of COVID-19. Poised for a theatrical release, the film was shuffled off to the burgeoning realm of premium video-on-demand a few months before its release, all but relegating it to obscurity in the midst of a pandemic. That's really unfortunate, as Michael Matthews' "Love and Monsters" is one of the most thrilling and poignant young adult adaptations released in years.

Dylan O'Brien's Joel Dawson and his girlfriend were separated after large monsters crashed into Earth and wiped out most of humanity. In typical YA fashion, after spending years apart in different colonies, Joel risks it all to go after her, not knowing what the world outside his bunker holds. 

As it turns out, it holds lots and lots of monsters. With help from one of cinema's cutest canine companions, Joel travels across a vast, unfamiliar landscape brimming with new life, new ecosystems, and monstrous beings. As a YA enterprise, things never get too dark, but as in "Dominion" there's a tender poignancy to seeing the world revert to its original state. Absent human intervention and destruction, this is what the world might look like.

"Land of the Lost" is funnier than you might expect from a late '00s Will Ferrell movie. Adapted from the television series of the same name — very loosely adapted, it must be said — "Land of the Lost" stars Ferrell as paleontologist Rick Marshall, a wacky guy obsessed with time warps whose career is derailed after a disastrous interview with Matt Lauer (one element that has not aged well). Inspired by doctoral candidate Holly (Anna Friel), Rick continues his research, and soon, he, Holly, and a gift shop owner named Will (Danny McBride) are transported through the time warp to the titular land of the lost.

There, they find dinosaurs, primates, and Sleestaks, i.e., ferocious lizard men who hope to take over the world. All of it is played for laughs, and not every critic found it to be especially funny. But while it's not classic material, "Land of the Lost" earns enough rated-PG-13 goodwill to overcome its shortcomings. Ferrell is as reliable as always, and McBride is perfect as his foil. Even Friel, best known for her role in "Pushing Daisies," manages to match their comic energy. "Land of the Lost" is what "Jurassic Park" might look like if it were written by a bunch of middle schoolers obsessed with fart jokes — and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Michael Dougherty's "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" may have been met with a lukewarm critical reception, but it delivered exactly what fans of the franchise wanted: heaps and heaps of kaiju action. Sure, the plot, the characters, and sensible decisions are all either severely undercooked or absent entirely, but that hardly matters when the three-headed King Ghidorah dukes it out with Godzilla in an arctic tundra.

Envisioning a world much like the one in "Jurassic World Dominion" "King of the Monsters" asks how human beings might be able to peacefully coexist with the so-called Titans. Some people want to annihilate them. Some want to leave them in peace. Others want to reawaken them and let them destroy the world so that a new one might be born. There are a lot of conflicting motivations at play, most of which are hazily assembled, but it's the perfect framework for big monstrous fight after big monstrous fight. Just as "Dominion" doubles down on the dinos, "King of the Monsters" takes the monsters in its title very seriously.

Peter Hyams' "A Sound of Thunder," based on the Ray Bradbury short story of the same name, isn't an especially good movie. It was a critical disaster and box office flop, a hastily assembled blockbuster that, in all likelihood, hoped to recapture the same lighting as "Jurassic Park." In it, the year is 2055 and the company Time Safari, clearly not learning anything from the likes of John Hammond, offers trips through time for wealthy clients. Ostensibly, the company has gone to great lengths to keep their clients from altering the past, though there wouldn't be a movie if someone didn't goof up.

Soon, the Time Safari returns to the present to find an excess of plant life, increased temperatures, and dangerous "time waves" that have been altering organic life every time they go off. Life grows more dangerous, and the film's main characters must find out what was altered in the past in order to prevent this cataclysmic new world from coming into existence. It's a film that has dinosaurs, monstrous bugs, and plenty of goofy action. With the right mindset, "A Sound of Thunder" is a goofier "Jurassic Park," a cautionary tale about playing god and screwing with the past.

In "Jurassic Park III," Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill) remarks, "Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best intentions." That's a good way to sum up Saffron Burrows' Dr. Susan McCallister's predicament in Renny Harlin's "Deep Blue Sea." Looking to reactivate dormant brain cells in Alzheimer's patients, Dr. McCallister and her crew at a massive underwater research facility have been experimenting with mako shark brains, hoping to harness a special protein. In effect, they've been artificially growing the brains inside the sharks, making the animals smarter, in the hopes of curing a terrible disease. Good intentions, bad execution.

Of course, the sharks grow too intelligent, and after an attack and an explosive helicopter crash, the remaining crew are stuck in the facility as it floods, desperate to reach the surface. "Deep Blue Sea" is very much a product of its time — LL Cool J was something of a scream queen in the '90s — but it still delivers heaps of gory shark fun replete with zingers, famous monologues, and lots of bodies chomped to bits. It's a rollicking good blockbuster about well-intentioned science run amok.

Directing duo Michael and Peter Spierig, better known as the Spierig brothers, are responsible for one of this century's most accomplished science fiction movies, "Predestination." Adapted from Robert Heinlein's short story "All You Zombies," it's a masterclass in character work, grounded science fiction, and humanistic endeavors. Before "Predestination," however, they directed "Daybreakers," another criminally underrated genre hybrid that envisions a world where vampires have taken over. Humans are farmed for their bodily fluidsas the undead wander about, buying bags of blood from street vendors like they're city dogs, a textured interpretation of what a vampire society might look like.

Vampire hematologist Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is captured by a group of humans and former vampires, all of whom assure him that they know of a cure that will restore a person's humanity. That's a necessity — blood supplies are dwindling, and more and more vampires are becoming "subsiders," or animalistic bat monsters with blood deficiencies. Once Edward is on board, he and the survivors are tracked by Bromley Marks, the world's largest pharmaceutical supplier of blood, and it's a race against the clock to find a cure. Like "Jurassic World Dominion," "Daybreakers" preys on the innate humanity of even ostensibly monstrous beings, envisioning a world not unlike ours where science, profit, and greed supersede caring for others. While it's more violent and intense than any of the "Jurassic Park" movies, older audiences will find it worth sinking their teeth into.

Classic science fiction writers were having a day in the early '00s. At the time, it seemed as if every other Hollywood movie was directly or indirectly adapted from some of the greats. Simon Wells' "The Time Machine," released in 2002, was one of the best of this crop. Adapted from H.G. Wells' novel of the same name, "The Time Machine" follows Dr. Alexander Hartdegen (Guy Pearce), an inventor at the turn of the 20th century who develops a time machine to save his fiancée, Emma (Sienna Guillory), from certain death. Every opportunity to intervene, however, results in a different demise; when Alexander saves Emma from a mugger, for example, she later dies in a carriage accident.

As Alexander travels through the past and the future, he searches to find a way to save Emma, encountering a number of interesting characters along the way. A box office success, "The Time Machine" was nominated for an Academy Award for its makeup effects. Like "Jurassic World Dominion," the film is a technical marvel with a simple thesis: Messing with the past is never a good idea.

"Evolution" feels like something of a fever dream. A staple of video rental stores, it's a movie that older millennials likely remember checking out, if only for the big three-eyed smiley face on the poster. Luckily, its appeal extends far beyond simple nostalgia; Ivan Reitman's "Evolution" is a genuinely good time. A cast that includes David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, and Julianne Moore investigates a strange meteorite crash in Arizona, only to discover that the meteorite harbors extraterrestrial lifeforms, all of which are rapidly evolving into different creatures.

Like "Jurassic World Dominion," "Evolution" is about creation run amok. With a slapstick tone, "Evolution" is never anywhere near as frightening as the Jurassic Park franchise writ large, but it's a comedic interlude in a filmic landscape drowning in self-serious blockbusters. The monsters look great, the cast has infectious chemistry, and, best of all, "Evolution" never pretends to be as more than it is. It's a funny, big-budget movie about strange evolving aliens with Fox Mulder in the lead. Sometimes, that's all you need.

It's "Jurassic World Dominion," but with dragons. Rob Bowman's "Reign of Fire" remains considerably underrated to this day. While it wasn't exactly a financial disaster, it only managed to make $82 million against a $60 million budget. It's unfortunate, because "Reign of Fire" is a somber, thrilling post-apocalyptic saga featuring freaking dragons. After a construction crew frees the creatures from within the Earth, everything falls apart; by 2020, humans are nearly extinct as dragons roam the earth.

The cast includes Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey, Izabella Scorupco, and Gerard Butler, a veritable assemblage of early '00s action stars, and more fire-breathing dragons than anyone needed — and that's a good thing. With thrilling action beats, somber reflection on the nature of humanity, and, again, so many dragons, "Reign of Fire" remains unmatched 20 years later, a distinct blockbuster in a world that abounds with too much sameness. Additionally, like "Dominion," it's an apocalyptic blockbuster that inspires awe and fear in equal measure. It's a shame "Reign of Fire" never quite set the world aflame.

Peter Jackson's "King Kong" is often overshadowed by his work on the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. However, with the right perspective, it's easy to argue that his work here is no less impressive than that of his Tolkien adaptations. Here, Jackson captures the same kind of awe that Spielberg harnessed in 1993 with "Jurassic Park." It's movie magic, plain and simple, a big, long, gorgeously composed homage to Hollywood's Golden Age, a time when blockbusters were impressive and excessive in equal measure.

Sticking closely to the beats of the original "King Kong" and its earlier remakes — this isn't the Monsterverse's King Kong — the film follows a group of filmmakers who travel to Skull Island at the height of the Great Depression. There, they encounter an entire ecosystem untouched by modern life, where giant bugs, dinosaurs, and King Kong himself thrive. It's impossible to convey the chokehold "King Kong" had on audiences when released December 2005. It dominated the filmic landscape — I saw it no fewer than four times in theaters over winter break — and radically reimagined what a blockbuster movie could be. Long live the king.

2008's "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is the closest that Brendan Fraser has come yet to recapturing the nostalgic, family-friendly vibes of "The Mummy" trilogy. Eric Brevig's adaptation of Jules Verne's 1864 novel of the same name follows Fraser's Trevor Anderson, a volcanologist who slowly begins to suspect that Verne's novel isn't just fiction, but rather a factual account of what can be found at the Earth's center. Alongside his young nephew, Sean (Josh Hutcherson), Trevor travels to Iceland and soon enough finds himself in the literal center of the Earth.

Sean and Trevor need a geyser to return to the surface, and so begins their race against the clock to find their way home. Like "Jurassic World," "Journey to the Center of the Earth" takes an almost meta approach to the source material, reconfiguring classic tropes to make them better fit the modern world. That said, there are still dinosaurs, massive oceans, and close calls all over. At its core, "Journey to the Center of the Earth" is a fantastic adventure for the whole family. It's the kind of material that Fraser especially shines in, as well as a warm throwback to a time before blockbusters were overly concerned with establishing long-running franchises and interconnected cinematic universes.