Jurassic Park (film)

Jurassic Park is a 1993 American science fiction action film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Gerald R. Molen, and starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and Richard Attenborough. It was written by Michael Crichton and David Koepp, based on Crichton's 1990 novel. The film is set on the fictional island of Isla Nublar, off Central America's Pacific Coast near Costa Rica, where wealthy businessman John Hammond (Attenborough) and a team of genetic scientists have created a wildlife park of de-extinct dinosaurs. When industrial sabotage leads to a catastrophic shutdown of the park's power facilities and security precautions, a small group of visitors, including Hammond's grandchildren, struggle to survive and escape the now perilous island.
Before Crichton's novel was published, four studios put in bids for its film rights. With the backing of Universal Pictures, Spielberg acquired the rights for $1.5 million before its publication in 1990. Crichton was hired for an additional $500,000 to adapt the novel for the screen. Koepp wrote the final draft, which left out much of the novel's exposition and violence, while making numerous changes to the characters. Filming took place in California and Hawaii from August to November 1992, and post-production lasted until May 1993, supervised by Spielberg in Poland as he filmed Schindler's List. The dinosaurs were created with groundbreaking computer-generated imagery by Industrial Light & Magic, and with life-sized animatronic dinosaurs built by Stan Winston's team. To showcase the film's sound design, which included a mixture of various animal noises for the dinosaur sounds, Spielberg invested in the creation of DTS, a company specializing in digital surround sound formats. The film was backed by an extensive $65 million marketing campaign, which included licensing deals with over 100 companies.
Jurassic Park premiered on June 9, 1993, at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C., and was released on June 11 in the United States. It was a blockbuster hit and went on to gross over $914 million worldwide in its original theatrical run, surpassing Spielberg's own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to become the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of Titanic in 1997. It also remains the highest-grossing film directed by Spielberg to date. The film received critical acclaim, with praise to its special effects, sound design, action sequences, John Williams's score, and Spielberg's direction. The film won 20 awards, including three Academy Awards for technical achievements in visual effects and sound design. Following its 20th anniversary re-release in 2013, Jurassic Park became the oldest film in history to surpass $1 billion in ticket sales and the 17th overall.
In the years since its release, film critics and industry professionals have often cited Jurassic Park as one of the greatest movies in history. Its pioneering use of computer-generated imagery is considered to have paved the way for the visual effects practices of modern cinema. In 2018, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The film spawned a multimedia franchise that includes six sequels, video games, theme park attractions, comic books and various merchandise.
Industrialist John Hammond has created Jurassic Park, an animal theme park of cloned dinosaurs, on the island of Isla Nublar, near the coast of Costa Rica. After a Velociraptor kills a handler, the park's investors, represented by lawyer Donald Gennaro, demand a safety certification. Gennaro invites chaotician Ian Malcolm, and Hammond invites paleontologist Alan Grant and paleobotanist Ellie Sattler. Upon arrival, the group is shocked to see living Brachiosaurus and Parasaurolophus. At the park's visitor center, the group learns that the cloning was accomplished by extracting dinosaur DNA from prehistoric mosquitoes preserved in amber. DNA from frogs, among other animals, was used to fill in gaps in the dinosaurs' genome.
To prevent breeding, the dinosaurs were made female by direct chromosome manipulation. The group witnesses the hatching of a baby Velociraptor and visits the raptor enclosure. During lunch, the group debates the ethics of cloning and the park's creation. Malcolm warns of the implications of genetic engineering while Grant and Sattler express uncertainty over the ability of humans and dinosaurs to coexist. Hammond's grandchildren, Lex and Tim, join the others for a park tour while Hammond oversees them from the control room. Most of the dinosaurs fail to appear, and the group encounters a sick Triceratops. The tour is cut short as a tropical storm approaches. The park employees leave for the mainland on a boat while the visitors return to their railed-electric tour vehicles, except Sattler, who stays behind with the park's veterinarian, Doctor Harding, to study the Triceratops.
Jurassic Park's disgruntled lead computer programmer, Dennis Nedry, was previously bribed by Lewis Dodgson, a man working for Hammond's corporate rival, to steal frozen dinosaur embryos. He deactivates the park's security system to access the embryo storage room and stores them inside a container disguised as a Barbasol shaving cream can. Nedry's sabotage cuts power to the tour vehicles, stranding them as they near the park's Tyrannosaurus rex paddock. Most of the park's electric fences have also been deactivated, allowing the Tyrannosaurus to escape and attack the group. After the Tyrannosaurus overturns a tour vehicle, it injures Malcolm and devours Gennaro while Grant, Lex, and Tim escape. On his way to deliver the embryos to the island's docks, Nedry gets lost in the rain, crashes his Jeep Wrangler and is killed by a venom-spitting Dilophosaurus.
Sattler helps the game warden Robert Muldoon search for survivors; they find Malcolm just before the Tyrannosaurus returns and chases them away. Grant, Tim, and Lex take shelter in a treetop and encounter a Brachiosaurus herd. Back at the visitor center, Sattler convinces Hammond not to recreate the park, as his vision is beyond human control. Grant and the kids discover the broken shells of dinosaur eggs the following morning. Grant concludes that the dinosaurs are breeding, which is possible because of amphibian DNA—animals like West African frogs can change their sex in a single-sex environment, enabling the dinosaurs to breed. The three later encounter a Gallimimus stampede being hunted by the Tyrannosaurus.
Unable to decipher Nedry's code to reactivate the security system, Hammond and chief engineer Ray Arnold decide to reboot the park's systems. The group shuts down the park's power grid and retreats to an emergency bunker while Arnold heads to a maintenance shed to complete the rebooting process. When Arnold fails to return, Sattler and Muldoon head over, discovering the shutdown has released the Velociraptors. Muldoon distracts two of them while Sattler turns the power back on before being attacked by the third and discovering Arnold's severed arm. At the same time, Muldoon is caught off-guard and killed by a Velociraptor.
Grant, Tim, and Lex reach the visitor center. Grant heads out to look for Sattler, leaving Tim and Lex inside. The raptors appear and pursue Tim and Lex throughout a kitchen, but they escape, locking one in a freezer before joining Grant and Sattler. The group reaches the control room, and Lex restores the park's systems, allowing them to contact Hammond, who calls for help. As they try to leave, they are cornered by the two remaining raptors, but the Tyrannosaurus appears and dispatches them while the group flees. Hammond arrives in a jeep with Malcolm and they board a helicopter to leave the island.
Michael Crichton's 1990 novel Jurassic Park was originally conceived as a screenplay in the 1980s, and went through numerous changes before being published as a book. In the late 1970s, a bidding war began for the film rights to Crichton's then-upcoming novel Congo, which would not be made into a film until 1995. With Jurassic Park, Crichton hoped to avoid another bidding war and the same protracted outcome by offering the film rights at a fixed price of $1.5 million, as he was primarily concerned with ensuring that a film actually be produced; he was less interested in receiving a top offer.
Crichton submitted the Jurassic Park manuscript to his publisher in May 1990. Director Steven Spielberg learned of the novel that month while he was discussing a screenplay with Crichton that would become the television series ER. Spielberg had a life-long fascination with dinosaurs and expressed interest in Jurassic Park. After reading the galleys, he committed to direct the film adaptation. He liked the novel's sense of adventure and its scientific explanation for dinosaur resurrection, saying it provided "a really credible look at how dinosaurs might someday be brought back alongside modern mankind".
Crichton was represented by an agent at Creative Artists Agency. Spielberg recalled that "the agency got ahold of it; and they, of course, encouraged a bidding war, even though Michael had kind of promised me the book privately." Major studios bid for the film rights, each with a director in mind. This included Warner Bros. and Tim Burton, Columbia Pictures and Richard Donner, and 20th Century Fox and Joe Dante. Crichton spoke with each director and endorsed Spielberg as the most likely candidate to get the film made, noting it would be "a very difficult picture" and calling Spielberg "arguably the most experienced and most successful director of these kinds of movies". Universal Pictures, also backing Spielberg as director, acquired the rights in May 1990, less than a week after they were offered for sale and six months before the novel's publication.
James Cameron revealed in 2012 that he had tried to purchase the rights, only to discover that Spielberg had acquired them a few hours prior. Cameron said his version of Jurassic Park would have been "much nastier", comparing it with his 1986 film Aliens. He realized he was not the right director for Jurassic Park after seeing the finished product, commending Spielberg for making a film which could be enjoyed by children. Dante also praised it, but disagreed with Spielberg's decision to make Hammond more of a protagonist, a departure from the novel.
Storyboards and sketches were already being produced weeks after the rights were acquired. Because of the island setting and abundance of dinosaurs, Spielberg believed it would be advantageous to hire a production designer as soon as possible, choosing Rick Carter about two years before the start of filming. They read the galleys and held many meetings to discuss which scenes would work best in the film adaptation. Spielberg said that with Jurassic Park, he "was really just trying to make a good sequel to Jaws, on land." He was also heavily inspired by the 1933 film King Kong, calling it the "high-water mark" for special effects and for imagining "what it would be like to do a King Kong of today." He cited the 1962 film Hatari! as another inspiration, calling it "the high-water mark of man versus the natural in a feature film." Spielberg described the 1956 film Godzilla, King of the Monsters! as the most masterful dinosaur film of his youth, because it made him and viewers believe it was really happening. Although he did not set out to make a dinosaur film better than any others, he did want Jurassic Park to be "the most realistic of them all."
It eventually became clear to Spielberg that Jurassic Park would require more time in development, in order to determine the effects needed to create the dinosaurs. He shifted focus to his 1991 film Hook, while continuing to monitor progress on Jurassic Park, including script revisions. The art department went on an eight-month hiatus from Jurassic Park to work on Death Becomes Her, another Universal film. After completing Hook, Spielberg wanted Schindler's List to be his next film. Sid Sheinberg, president of Music Corporation of America (Universal's parent company at the time) gave the greenlight to Schindler's List on the condition that Spielberg make Jurassic Park first. Set designs began to be finalized in January 1992; a hotel was among locations at the fictional park that would be cut from the film.
Kathleen Kennedy, who co-founded Amblin Entertainment with Spielberg, would serve as a producer on Jurassic Park alongside Gerald Molen, who had worked with Amblin in the past. Kennedy handled the creative aspects of the project, while Molen managed production-related elements. Dean Cundey, the cinematographer for Hook, would rejoin Spielberg for Jurassic Park, signing on to the project relatively late in pre-production. However, he had followed the film's progress through an association with Carter; both had worked on Death Becomes Her. Cundey described his cinematography as "a realistic, crisp, color-saturated look," aligning with Spielberg's vision for the film. Michael Kahn, Spielberg's longtime film editor, would also return for Jurassic Park.
Crichton had mixed feelings about being offered a further $500,000 to write the film adaptation: "I was so tired of the whole area that I didn't really want to do the screenplay. I was sick of Malcolm and I was sick of Grant–and I was even sick of the dinosaurs. But I really felt that I knew the dimensions of the story." Crichton recognized that, by writing the screenplay himself, the project could avoid the same issues he experienced while developing the novel.
Before writing the film, he met several times with Spielberg to discuss which aspects of the book he liked and disliked. Crichton completed his first draft later in 1990, but said "nobody was happy with it at all"; the draft skipped ahead to action rather than building up to it, as in the novel. At Spielberg's suggestion, Crichton rewrote the script in 40-page increments, with the first batch being better received. Crichton was aided by existing storyboards and sketches as he continued to rework the script, with the remaining 80 pages completed in early 1991.
Crichton had agreed only to write a preliminary version of the film: "I told Steven, 'I'll do a draft for you and cut it down to budgetable size; but then you're going to want somebody else to polish the characters.' I think that sort of surprised him, because writers never say, 'Get somebody else.'" Crichton finished his draft as Spielberg was filming Hook, the latter co-written by Malia Scotch Marmo and produced by Kennedy. While on the set of Hook, Scotch Marmo was reading the Jurassic Park novel and learned from Kennedy about the film adaptation, accepting an offer to work on its screenplay. Scotch Marmo began writing Jurassic Park in October 1991. She chose to start from scratch, with the novel as her basis, although she did read Crichton's screenplay and consulted with him. Spielberg also agreed to provide her with his own copy of the novel, which contained highlighted aspects of the book that he enjoyed. In addition, she looked at the numerous storyboards produced up to that point.
Scotch Marmo focused on building up the characters "to give them more life and more purpose" than in Crichton's novel and screenplay. She removed Malcolm from the story and tried to incorporate his characteristics into Grant, whom she found to be underdeveloped. She also sought to emphasis the major themes of the novel, specifically the "fatal flaw of trying to control nature," for instance by showing jungle vegetation creeping into the park's unfinished visitor center: "The idea was that nature was always in the way, always pushing hard against the intrusion." In the novel, Hammond is killed by a group of Procompsognathus. Crichton's draft had also included a death scene, with Hammond killed by a Velociraptor at the visitor center. In Scotch Marmo's draft, Hammond would choose to stay behind on Isla Nublar, and the other characters would escape after surviving a T. rex attack on their helicopter.
Scotch Marmo spent five months writing her draft and worked closely with Spielberg, noting that their collaboration was unlike most films in which writers "get an assignment, go home, write it and turn it in." She would send him 15 pages at a time, and then would rework them to his liking, sending the revised pages back along with the next 15. She completed her draft in March 1992; Spielberg read it twice and was dissatisfied. She recalled later, "As a writer, that's a terrible feeling. The natural urge is to say: 'Give me another week. I can work it out. I know I can.' But the truth is, sometimes you do hit and sometimes you miss. It's just a shame that it takes so long to find out."
Spielberg immediately began searching for a new writer, and Universal president Casey Silver recommended David Koepp, who co-wrote Death Becomes Her. Koepp had not read the novel, but quickly obtained a copy, and later discussed the book with Spielberg. Koepp disliked doing rewrites because "it's very hard to get into the mind of somebody else and try to follow what they were doing." Spielberg told Koepp he could start from scratch, allowing his own ideas to fully develop. He read through the novel four times before he began writing the screenplay, and chose not to read the earlier drafts until he finished his own. Two sequences from the novel were mandated: the T. rex attack on a tour vehicle, and the raptors in the kitchen. Otherwise, Koepp was generally allowed to make his own creative choices.
Koepp found it difficult to condense the novel's scientific exposition, especially the dialogue that explains how the dinosaurs were created. Spielberg devised an idea to easily convey the cloning process through a short, animated film shown to the park visitors. Koepp named the film's cartoon narrator "Mr. DNA", after Spielberg jokingly referred to the character as such. Like Scotch Marmo, Koepp also sought to flesh out the characters of the novel while merging Malcolm's traits into Grant, finding the former character too difficult to write: "I told Steven before I started, 'That guy's gotta go. [...] He's just talking for pages at a time about esoteric scientific concepts'."
After Koepp finished his first draft, Spielberg sent it to Scotch Marmo for her opinion, and she replied with 12 pages of input; these were forwarded to Koepp, who found them helpful. He continued to work closely with Spielberg and with additional feedback from Scotch Marmo. Malcolm was written in at Spielberg's insistence, after Jeff Goldblum auditioned for the film and was deemed perfect for the role. Koepp tried to make the characters interesting, with moments such as Malcolm flirting with Sattler, leading to Grant's jealousy. He also tried to avoid excessive character detail because "whenever they started talking about their personal lives, you couldn't care less." Spielberg suggested modifying a scene so that the T. rex pursues characters in a Jeep; originally, it only depicted them driving away after hearing the dinosaur's footsteps.
Rewrites continued until just before the start of filming. Crichton noted that the final draft differed drastically from his earlier script, but praised the changes and said the new screenplay "seems very compatible with my way of thinking—it fits in my mind." Scotch Marmo did not receive credit for her work.
Crichton said that because the novel was "fairly long," at nearly 400 pages, the film adaptation would only have about 10-20% of its content; scenes were dropped for budgetary and practical reasons, and the violence was toned down. Spielberg said, "What I wanted to do was boil the book down and choose my seven or eight favorite scenes and base the script around those." In a departure from the novel, Spielberg sought to reduce the number of dinosaurs, believing it would not be "physically possible" to make the film otherwise. Koepp said the novel was written "more or less like a movie," making it one of the easier book-to-film adaptations he had worked on. He said that, like with any adaptation, the most difficult part of his writing assignment was to determine the overall structure of the story.
Spielberg removed an early scene in the novel, in which Procompsognathus kill a baby, as he found it too horrific. Another scene set in a pterosaur aviary was also removed, as it did not move the plot along. A major sequence, present in the novel and the two earlier screenplays, involved the T. rex chasing Grant and Hammond's grandchildren in a raft down a river. Koepp chose not to include this in his script: "I never wanted the raft sequence. It seemed to me that at certain points in the book we were being taken on sort of an obligatory tour past every dinosaur the park had to offer." He said the omission was an easy choice, calling the sequence redundant and noting that it would have been "monstrously expensive" to shoot. Novel scenes that were cut from the film adaptation would gradually be included in sequels, with the raft sequence being featured in the 2025 film Jurassic World Rebirth.
Several characters were modified for the film. Originally a ruthless and greedy businessman in the novel, Hammond was rewritten to be sympathetic, as Spielberg related to the character's obsession with showmanship. The ages of Tim and Lex were switched; Spielberg did this because he wanted to work with the younger Joseph Mazzello, and it allowed him to introduce the subplot of Lex's adolescent crush on Grant. For the film, Lex would also take on Tim's interest in computers. In another change, Grant and Sattler are made a couple for the film, adding subtle romance. Koepp changed Grant's relationship with the children, making him initially hostile to them to allow for more character development. This is partly reflected through his relationship with Sattler, who wants them to have children of their own. Removed from the film was Ed Regis, the park's public relations chief, whose cowardly traits were merged into Donald Gennaro. Several other characters were reduced to one scene each, including Henry Wu, Dr. Harding, and Dodgson. The name of InGen's corporate rival and Dodgson's employer, Biosyn, is also omitted and eventually featured in the 2022 film Jurassic World Dominion.
Because much of the film's budget was going toward its dinosaur effects, Spielberg sought to cast relatively unknown actors, saying further: "Basically, I wanted good, solid actors who weren't going to charge outrageous prices. I didn't want to spend three to five million dollars apiece on actors". Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss were considered for the role of Alan Grant, but were deemed too expensive. William Hurt, Harrison Ford, and Tim Robbins turned down the role, which eventually went to Sam Neill. Laura Dern was cast as Ellie Sattler, after Robin Wright and Juliette Binoche turned down offers to play the character. Stacy Haiduk, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Helen Hunt had also auditioned for the role.
Casting director Janet Hirshenson felt that Jeff Goldblum was right to play Ian Malcolm after reading the novel, although Jim Carrey also auditioned for the role. According to Hirshenson, Carrey "was terrific, too, but I think pretty quickly we all loved the idea of Jeff". Richard Attenborough was cast as John Hammond, but was initially hesitant to join the project, which marked his first acting role in 14 years. He eventually signed on at the insistence of Spielberg, who told him, "I can't see anyone else playing it but you". Neill, Dern, Goldblum, and Attenborough were cast late in pre-production, with only a few weeks to prepare for their roles. According to Neill, the process "all happened real quick. I hadn't read the book, knew nothing about it, hadn't heard anything about it, and in a matter of weeks I'm working with Spielberg". The start of filming was delayed a month to accommodate Neill's schedule.
Ariana Richards, who plays Lex Murphy, said: "I was called into a casting office, and they just wanted me to scream. I heard later on that Steven had watched a few girls on tape that day, and I was the only one who ended up waking his sleeping wife on the couch, and she came running through the hallway to see if the kids were all right". Christina Ricci also auditioned to play Lex. Joseph Mazzello had screen-tested for a role in Hook, but was deemed too young. Spielberg promised him they would work together on a future film, subsequently casting him for the role of Tim.
Hirshenson, who previously cast Whoopi Goldberg in the 1990 film Ghost, had Samuel L. Jackson audition as Ray Arnold after Goldberg noted his performance in the 1991 film Jungle Fever. Spielberg and Hirshenson were instantly impressed with Jackson and gave him the role. Spielberg chose Wayne Knight to play Dennis Nedry after seeing him in the 1992 film Basic Instinct. BD Wong was cast as Dr. Henry Wu, both of Asian descent. He was disappointed by how small the role turned out to be compared with the novel, believing the character's reduced screentime to be the result of "racial exclusion". Cameron Thor had worked with Spielberg on Hook, and initially auditioned to play Malcolm, before being cast as Dodgson. Molen took on the small role of Dr. Harding. In the novel, Richard Kiley provides the voice of the guide for the park's tour vehicles. For the film, Kiley was cast in the same role.
Production designer Rick Carter did not want the fictional theme park to have "a lot of commercialized edifices that feel shallow and overly bright and overly energetic. Even though that is something that the park would probably evolve into if it were finished, I thought as a film it would feel shallow. This is, after all, not Disneyland." The exterior design of the park's visitor center was loosely based on a Jerusalem temple. The interior design featured a dinosaur theme, including skeletons and a mural, the latter by artist Doug Henderson. For the control room, set designer Lauren Cory referred to computer environments at several theme parks as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The set included a wall-mounted 6-by-8-foot (1.8 m × 2.4 m) screen and numerous computers, lent by Apple, Silicon Graphics and Thinking Machines Corporation.
The park's vehicles were designed by art director John Bell. Crichton's book has electric-powered Toyota Land Cruisers as the tour vehicles, but Spielberg made a deal with the Ford Motor Company, which provided seven Ford Explorers. They received a custom paint job and a plexiglass roof. Like in the novel, the vehicles are presented as autonomous cars. They travel on a track that, in reality, was non-functional. Industrial Light & Magic, along with veteran customizer George Barris, modified the Explorers to be controlled by drivers hidden in the trunk of the vehicles, with front-mounted cameras allowing them to see the road. Barris also customized Jeep Wranglers used by the park's workers.
In the film, Dodgson gives Nedry a container, disguised as a can of shaving cream, which is used to transport the stolen dinosaur embryos. According to Bell, the script did not specify a brand of shaving cream, so he browsed at a drug store and eventually chose Barbasol for its distinctive design. In addition, Bell designed night vision goggles used by Tim, prior to the T. rex breakout.
The decision was made to forego a costume designer. Instead, Molen brought on the costume supervisors from Hook, who selected ready-to-wear clothing for the cast from various retailers. Malcolm's all-black outfit was an aspect lifted from the novel, and Goldblum added to it by wearing a black leather jacket. Hammond's all-white outfit was meant to evoke him as a sort of religious figure or deity.
The film's fictional setting of Isla Nublar is located near Costa Rica, which was briefly considered as a filming location early on; this idea was scrapped as production would have occurred during the country's rainy season. Puerto Rico was seriously considered as well, until Spielberg settled on Kauai, Hawaii. He attributed this decision to his age: "Had I been twenty-six instead of forty-five, I might have gone to Yucatan or the Philippines or Costa Rica–someplace really rugged." He also liked the idea of "staying in a nice Hawaiian hotel with room service and a pool", while stating that the tropical landscapes were as good, or better than, the alternative sites. In addition, Spielberg was familiar with Hawaii, having filmed there in the past, and was concerned about infrastructure and accessibility at the other locations. Set construction began in early June 1992, nearly three months before the start of filming. Some of the locations were remote and only accessible with off-road vehicles.
After 25 months of pre-production, filming began on August 24, 1992, at Olokele Canyon. The three-week Kauai shoot was focused on exterior scenes, many of them set on Isla Nublar during daytime. Spontaneous cloud coverage occurred frequently, necessitating the use of lighting and film exposure tricks in order to match with previously shot footage. Scenes of the park's visitors arriving and departing Isla Nublar, via helicopter, were filmed at Manawaiopuna Falls, which became commonly known as Jurassic Falls after the film's release. Keopuka Rock, alternatively known as Jurassic Rock, was used for an early shot of the helicopter as it approaches Isla Nublar. The rock is located near the island of Maui, but filming otherwise continued on Kauai.
The exterior of the Jurassic Park visitor center was built on the grounds of the Valley House Plantation Estate. It was constructed as a 60-foot (18 m)-high facade, nearly 200 feet (61 m) in length. A Jurassic Park gate, marking the start of the theme park tour, was built at the base of Mount Waialeale.
An early scene, set at an amber mine in the Dominican Republic, was filmed near Hoʻopiʻi Falls. A meeting between Nedry and Dodgson was shot in Kapaa, standing in for San José, Costa Rica. The raptor enclosure set was built at Limahuli Garden and Preserve, operated by the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG). Allerton Garden, another NTBG property, was used in two instances: a set depicting the maintenance shed exterior, and a scene in which Grant discovers a dinosaur nest and realizes the animals are breeding.
Towering fences, standing 24 feet (7.3 m), were among the on-site construction work, representing the electrified perimeters of the T. rex enclosure during daytime scenes. Despite the simple design of the fencing, the project proved to be one of the most difficult for the production crew, as one of the filming sites was the remote Olokele Canyon. Special effects supervisor Michael Lantieri said "we had to haul all of this steel up there, drill holes like you would for telephone poles, pour concrete, and then pull all of the cables, which were three-quarter-inch aluminum with steel in the middle."
The longest stretch of fence measured over 200 feet (61 m), and more than six miles of cable were used in total. Spielberg wanted to avoid sagging in the cables, so the crew hired workers from a local company that was experienced with power lines. Lantieri called the project "an enormous job—and for very little payoff. People will look at the movie and say, 'Oh, there's a fence,' never realizing what it took to get it there." The canyon location was used for a scene in which Grant and the children, on their way to the visitor center, must climb over the fence to proceed.
On September 11, 1992, the last scheduled day of the Kauai shoot, Hurricane Iniki passed directly over the island. The cast and crew found out too late about the impending hurricane and took shelter at their hotel. Spielberg and a small crew ventured outside during the hurricane to capture brief footage, used in the film to depict the storm that hits Isla Nublar. A final scene, depicting a Gallimimus herd, was to be shot on Kauai, but the island was ravaged by the hurricane. The scene was instead filmed two weeks later at Kualoa Ranch, located on the island of Oahu. With its high cliffs, the ranch was considered more attractive than the empty plain that was originally planned for the scene. Despite the hurricane, the Hawaiian shoot came in essentially on budget and on schedule.
By September 15, 1992, the cast and crew had moved to California, where the remainder of filming was scheduled to take place, primarily on sound stages. The majority of stage shooting occurred at the Universal Studios Lot in the Los Angeles area. Among the first sets to be used there was an industrial-sized kitchen, for when the raptors stalk Lex and Tim. Because the kitchen was filled with reflective surfaces, Cundey had to carefully plan the illumination while also using black cloths to hide the light reflections. The scene was shot on Stage 24, and other stages at Universal would also be used for Jurassic Park.
Filming moved to Stage 23 for scenes involving the maintenance shed interior, before moving to Red Rock Canyon, which stood in as Grant's paleontological dig site. The filmmakers originally planned to shoot in Montana, where the scene is set, but this was scrapped to save time and money. Jack Horner, the film's paleontological advisor, was consulted to ensure an accurate representation of a dig site, although other paleontologists have found the scene to be overly simplified and unrealistic.
Filming continued to progress ahead of schedule, with Spielberg crediting the project's extensive use of storyboards. Back at Universal, Stage 27 was decorated with real and synthetic jungle vegetation for various scenes. The stage was used initially to depict Grant helping Tim out of a tour vehicle, after it has been shoved over a cliff by the T. rex and into a tree. Upon retrieving Tim, the vehicle begins to drop through the tree foliage, forcing the humans to quickly descend before being crushed. This was one of the most challenging scenes to shoot and required the creation of a 50-foot (15 m) artificial tree, made of steel, with the vehicle dropped down the tree multiple times to acquire the needed footage. Spielberg wanted the tree to appear three times taller than it actually was, so three sides were each decorated to represent a different portion of the vehicle drop. The same steel structure was then redressed to serve as a different tree, for a scene in which Grant and the children take refuge and encounter a Brachiosaurus. Stage 28 was used for scenes taking place in the park's control room and laboratory. Wong shot his scene on the latter set, over the course of a day or two.
Universal lacked a stage large enough to accommodate the T. rex breakout set, which was instead filmed on Stage 16 at Warner Bros. Studios, located nearby. Filming began there on October 27, 1992, with the stage decorated to match the Hawaii footage. The sequence is set at night during a storm, and the stage included rain machines and mud, making the shoot wet and messy for the cast and crew. Spielberg anticipated that the sequence could be the most difficult of the film, due to the rain machines and the logistics of using a life-sized T. rex animatronic. Complications arose when the T. rex began to shake and quiver from extra weight, as the dinosaur's foam rubber skin had absorbed a significant amount of the rainwater. Crew members had to dry the model with shammys between takes. The animatronic also lost a tooth during a scene in which it attacks the glass roof on one of the tour vehicles.
An early shot in the sequence focuses on the dashboard of one of the vehicles, with ripples forming in a glass of water, caused by the footsteps of the approaching T. rex. This was inspired by Spielberg listening to Earth, Wind and Fire in his car, and the vibrations the bass rhythm caused. Lantieri was unsure how to create the shot until the night before filming when he put a glass of water on his guitar, which achieved the concentric circles in the water that Spielberg wanted. The next morning, guitar strings were put inside the car, and a man on the floor plucked them to achieve the effect. Like Gennaro, Malcolm was originally scripted to flee in fear from the T. rex. This was changed with an on-set suggestion by Goldblum, who felt that heroic action was better. Instead, the scene features Malcolm using a flare to distract the dinosaur, allowing Grant to retrieve the children from the wrecked tour vehicle.
The Warner Bros. set included the cliff that the T. rex shoves the vehicle over. Koepp questioned the set design, which created an apparent plot hole, as the cliff would appear seemingly where the dinosaur had broken out: "I asked Steven, 'Don't you think people are going to notice that suddenly there's this cliff?' And he looked at me like I was from another planet and pointed at the great big robot of the T. rex and said, 'There's a T. rex! They're not gonna notice anything else but that!' And he was right." Also filmed at Warner Bros. was the T. rex's pursuit of a Jeep. Returning to Universal, the filmmakers shot scenes involving the deaths of Nedry and Muldoon, both on Stage 27; this location and Stage 16 were the only sound stages used for exterior scenes.
The T. rex sequence at Warner Bros., shot weeks before the end of filming, made Spielberg realize the dinosaur as the main star of Jurassic Park. He felt that audiences would be disappointed if the T. rex did not make a final appearance, and had the ending changed so the dinosaur faces off against multiple raptors in the visitor center, inadvertently saving the humans. Afterward, the T. rex makes what Spielberg described as a "King Kong roar" while a banner reading "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" falls. As previously written, Jurassic Park would end with a single raptor pursuing the humans and Grant using a platform machine to maneuver the dinosaur into a fossil tyrannosaur's jaws. The visitor center interior was constructed on Stage 12 at Universal. Cundey shot the finale with wide lenses to show off as much of the set as possible, but this also made the placing of on-set lights a "painstaking" process. Jurassic Park wrapped under budget and 12 days ahead of schedule on November 30, 1992.
For Jurassic Park, Spielberg sought to go beyond a simple monster movie, with Carter stating that they "tried to find the animal in the dinosaur as opposed to the monster in the dinosaur. The idea was not to make them any less threatening, but rather to keep them from doing as much 'monster schtick.'" Spielberg hired paleontologist Jack Horner to ensure that the dinosaurs would be designed and portrayed accurately, based on then-current knowledge of the animals. Certain concepts about dinosaurs were followed, like the theory they evolved into birds and had very little in common with lizards. This prompted the removal of the raptors' flicking tongues in early animatics, as Horner complained it was implausible.
Despite the film title's referencing the Jurassic period, Brachiosaurus and Dilophosaurus are the only dinosaurs featured that lived during that time; the other species in the film did not exist until the Cretaceous. The latter period is mentioned early in the film when Grant describes the ferocity of Velociraptor to a young boy, saying: "Try to imagine yourself in the Cretaceous period".
The dinosaurs were created through various methods, including animatronics and computer-generated imagery (CGI). Spielberg sought to use full-scale dinosaurs on-set as much as possible, rather than relying on stop motion, a post-production method commonly used in dinosaur films up to that point. He knew, early on, that stop motion would still be needed for wide shots of the dinosaurs. To help create the dinosaurs, Spielberg consulted and worked closely with Dennis Muren, an effects supervisor at Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which had already provided effects for several of his films. Spielberg hired Phil Tippett to create the dinosaur wide shots using go-motion, a variation of stop-motion, with ILM set to refine his work through compositing.
Separately, Spielberg thought of hiring ride designer Bob Gurr to create the full-scale dinosaurs, having been impressed by his work on a giant mechanical King Kong, made for the King Kong Encounter at Universal Studios Hollywood. Upon reflection, Spielberg felt that Gurr's life-sized robots would be too expensive and unconvincing. Spielberg then contacted effects artist Stan Winston, having seen his work on the queen alien in the 1986 film Aliens. Winston said the queen was easy compared to a dinosaur animatronic, because it was lightweight and did not have to look like a real animal. Nevertheless, he was intrigued by the offer to work on Jurassic Park.
Winston had one of his company artists, Mark "Crash" McCreery, create numerous dinosaur sketches. These impressed Universal, which eventually hired Winston's team to make the film's on-set dinosaurs. Winston and ILM also worked together on the film Terminator 2: Judgment Day, released in 1991. As with previous films, Winston's workers consisted of two groups: the art department, responsible in this case for the dinosaurs' outer appearance; and the mechanical department, which would handle the technical inner workings. Winston's crew created fully detailed models of the dinosaurs before molding latex skins, which were fitted over complex robotics. Sound stages were considered the most ideal filming environment for the animatronics, allowing sets to be built on elevated platforms with the mechanics of the dinosaurs concealed underneath.
In addition to wide shots, Tippett was tasked with creating go-motion animatics early on to help develop two major sequences: one depicting the T. rex breakout, and the other involving the raptors in the kitchen. His team built the dinosaur puppets and based their design on maquettes made by Winston. Despite go motion's attempts at motion blurs, Spielberg found the end results unsatisfactory for a live-action feature film. He wanted to include a stampede of dinosaur herds, but was unsure how to achieve this. After breaking new ground with the CGI effects in Terminator 2, Muren thought ILM could handle the stampede rather than Tippett: "Creating herds of animals with puppets would be very difficult, so I thought maybe that was something we might be able to do with computer graphics."
ILM animator Steve Williams believed that more could be done with CGI than just the stampede: "All of us wanted a crack at the T-rex, but we thought we could never get it because Stan was already in there, and so was Phil. But the attraction was strong, so I secretly started building some T-rex bones in the computer." Williams scanned various photographs to create his virtual skeleton and then animated a walk cycle for it. Fellow animator Mark Dippé also believed that CGI could be used for the film on a large scale, pushing Muren for months to consider the possibility. Muren, Kennedy and Molen were impressed when Williams unveiled his skeleton animation, and Muren was given approval to explore the use of CGI for the herd shots.
The T. rex animation was examined further. Winston's fifth-scale prototype of the dinosaur was scanned by Cyberware, and the data was refined with various computer programs to fit over the skeleton, creating a digital T. rex. Other programs were used to animate the creature, with the finished result impressing Spielberg so much that he scrapped the go-motion method, instead tasking ILM with creating digital dinosaurs for full-body shots. Upon seeing the T. rex animation, Tippett had declared, "I think I'm extinct." Spielberg had this incorporated into the script: Grant, impressed by Jurassic Park's living dinosaurs, says to Sattler, "We're out of a job," to which Malcolm replies, "Don't you mean extinct?"
Tippett had assembled a 30-person crew to prepare for the go-motion segments; Spielberg did not wish to lose his expertise, and Muren sought to keep him involved with the project as an advisor to ILM's animators. Muren later noted that "this is the first generation of computer animators, and they are struggling with hardware and software limitations that make the process excruciatingly painful and slow." Although Tippett disliked computers, Muren eventually convinced him to remain involved on Jurassic Park. Tippett and the ILM team spent approximately a month learning each other's respective fields.
Tippett acted as a consultant for dinosaur anatomy, and his animatics were used, along with storyboards, as a reference for what would be shot during the action sequences. ILM's artists were sent on private tours to a local animal park, so they could study large animals – rhinos, elephants, alligators, and giraffes – up close. They also took mime classes to aid in understanding movements. Special effects work continued during post-production, as Tippett's unit adjusted to new technology with Dinosaur Input Devices: models that fed information into computers, allowing them to animate the dinosaurs like stop-motion puppets. In addition, they acted out scenes with the raptors and Gallimimus.
The CGI dinosaurs by ILM, based on Winston's designs, took nearly a year to complete. Compositing the animals onto the live action scenes took around an hour. Rendering the dinosaurs often took two to four hours per frame, while the T. rex in the rain required six hours per frame. Jurassic Park has more than 50 CGI shots, with the end fight between the T. rex and raptors using all-CGI dinosaurs, something that made Spielberg nervous until he saw the finished result. The 127-minute film has 15 minutes of total screen time for the dinosaurs, including nine minutes of animatronics and six minutes of CGI.
Various dinosaurs are featured throughout the film:
Editing had already started during filming, and within days of wrapping, Kahn had a rough cut ready, allowing Spielberg to start filming Schindler's List. During this time, Spielberg left Kennedy in charge of the day-to-day post-production responsibilities on Jurassic Park. He monitored the progress while filming in Poland, and had teleconferences four times a week with ILM's crew. Spielberg estimated that 40 percent of the post-production process was done through this long-distance arrangement. He said working simultaneously on two vastly different productions was "a bipolar experience", where he used "every ounce of intuition on Schindler's List and every ounce of craft on Jurassic Park".
Along with the digital effects, Spielberg wanted the film to be the first with digital sound. He funded the creation of DTS (Digital Theater Systems) to allow audiences to "really hear the movie the way it was intended to be heard". The sound effects crew was supervised by Spielberg's friend and ILM founder George Lucas. Spielberg flew on weekends from Poland to Paris, where he met with sound designer Gary Rydstrom for updates. Rydstrom considered the sound process fun, given the film had all kinds of noise—animal sounds, rain, gunshots, car crashes—and at times no music. The process was finished by the end of April 1993.
As well as the CGI dinosaurs, ILM also created elements such as water splashing and digital face replacement for Ariana Richards's stunt double. Software used to create the dinosaurs and other visual effects included Pixar's RenderMan and Softimage 3D. ILM also used the program Viewpaint, which allowed the visual effects artists to paint color and texture directly onto the surface of the computer models. Jurassic Park was completed on May 28, 1993, after ILM concluded its CGI work.
John Williams, a frequent composer of Spielberg's films, began scoring Jurassic Park at the end of February 1993, and it was recorded a month later. Alexander Courage and John Neufeld provided the score's orchestrations. As with the Spielberg film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Williams felt he needed to write "pieces that would convey a sense of 'awe' and fascination", given that the film dealt with the "overwhelming happiness and excitement" of seeing live dinosaurs. More suspenseful scenes such as the Tyrannosaurus attack required frightening themes. The first soundtrack album was released on May 25, 1993. For the 20th anniversary of the film's release, a new soundtrack was issued for digital download on April 9, 2013, including four bonus tracks selected by Williams.
Universal took the lengthy pre-production period to carefully plan the Jurassic Park marketing campaign. It cost $65 million and included deals with 100 companies to market 1,000 products. These included: several Jurassic Park video games by Sega and Ocean Software; a toy line by Kenner distributed by Hasbro; McDonald's "Dino-Sized meals"; and a novelization for young children.
Much care was put into creating a logo that would serve to equally represent the fictional park and promote the movie and its tie-in products. Universal creative director Tom Martin joined forces with the design firm of Mike Salisbury, and out of 100 designs came one created by Sandy Collora, one of Winston's employees. The design took the T. rex skeleton drawn by Chip Kidd for the book's cover, put it into a circle, and added a rectangle with the title to create a badge-like structure. A jungle silhouette was added underneath for scale, and a Neuland typeface was used on the title. John Alvin was hired to design the film's poster; he went through many revisions, with the final design simply using the film's T. rex logo.
Neill recalled that the film was essentially marketed by Universal with the idea that the studio "could make huge blockbusters without 'movie stars", stating, "This was true enough, but I think it slightly irked us, the actors, to be reminded from time to time we were not real 'stars.'" Universal would instead tease the film's dinosaurs as the primary attraction. A teaser trailer was released in December 1992, in which a mine worker discovers a piece of amber that would be used by the theme park. A full trailer debuted shortly thereafter, providing only a fleeting glimpse of the dinosaurs, a tactic described by journalist Josh Horowitz, in 2007, as "that old Spielberg axiom of never revealing too much". The film was marketed with the tagline "An Adventure 65 Million Years in the Making". This was a joke Spielberg made on set about the genuine, thousands of years old mosquito in amber used for Hammond's walking stick. Jurassic Park was heavily marketed against its primary competitor, Last Action Hero, which ultimately struggled at the box office and with critics.
Jurassic Park premiered at the Uptown Theater in Washington, D.C. on June 9, 1993, in support of two children's charities. The film had previews on 1,412 screens starting at 9:30 pm EDT on Thursday, June 10, and officially opened on Friday in 2,404 theater locations and an estimated 3,400 screens. Following the film's release, a traveling exhibition called "The Dinosaurs of Jurassic Park" began, showcasing dinosaur skeletons and film props. The film began its international release on June 25, in Brazil before further openings in South America and then rolling out around most of the rest of the world from July 16 until October. The United Kingdom premiere helped save the Lyric Theatre in Carmarthen, Wales from closure, an event chronicled in the 2022 film Save the Cinema.
In anticipation of the film's Blu-ray release, Jurassic Park had a digital print released in UK cinemas on September 23, 2011.
Two years later, for the 20th anniversary of Jurassic Park, a 3D version of the film was released in cinemas. Spielberg declared that he had produced the film with a sort of "subconscious 3D", as scenes feature animals walking toward the cameras and some effects of foreground and background overlay. In 2011, he stated that Jurassic Park was the only one of his works he had considered for a conversion. Once he saw the 3D version of Titanic in 2012, he liked the new look of the film so much that he hired the same retrofitting company, Stereo D. Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński closely supervised the nine-month process in-between the production of Lincoln. Stereo D executive Aaron Parry said the conversion was an evolution of what the company had done with Titanic, "being able to capitalize on everything we learned with Jim [James Cameron] on Titanic and take it into a different genre and movie, and one with so many technical achievements". The studio had the help of ILM, which contributed some elements and updated effects shots for a better visual enhancement. It opened in the United States and seven other territories on April 5, 2013, with other countries receiving the re-release over the following six months. In 2018, the film was re-released in select theaters to celebrate its 25th anniversary. On August 25, 2023, the 3D version of the film was re-released in theaters to celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Jurassic Park was first officially released on VHS by CIC Video on October 3, 1994, in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where it had an exclusive seven-week rental window before going on sale on November 21. In the rest of the world, it was officially released on VHS and LaserDisc on October 4, 1994 (by MCA/Universal Home Video in the United States). Despite the official release date, most US retailers decided not to wait that long and were selling it by 1 October. With 17 million units sold, Jurassic Park is the fifth-best-selling VHS tape ever. Three years later, a THX certified Widescreen VHS was released on September 9, 1997.
The film was also first released as a Collector's Edition DVD and VHS on October 10, 2000, in both Widescreen (1.85:1) and Full Screen (1.33:1) versions, and as part of a box set with the sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park and both movies' soundtrack albums. It was the 13th-best-selling DVD of 2000 counting both versions, finishing the year with 910,000 units sold. Following the release of Jurassic Park III, a new box set with all the films called Jurassic Park Trilogy was released on December 11, 2001. It was repackaged as Jurassic Park Adventure Pack on November 29, 2005.
The trilogy was released on Blu-ray on October 25, 2011, debuting at number five on the Blu-ray charts, and nominated as the best release of the year by both the Las Vegas Film Critics Society and the Saturn Awards. In 2012, Jurassic Park was among twenty-five films chosen by Universal for a box set celebrating the studio's 100th anniversary, while also receiving a standalone 100th anniversary Blu-ray featuring an augmented reality cover. The following year, the 20th anniversary 3D conversion was issued on Blu-ray 3D.
The film, alongside The Lost World, Jurassic Park III and Jurassic World, was released as part of a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray box set on May 22, 2018, in honor of the original film's 25th anniversary.
Jurassic Park was broadcast on television for the first time on NBC on May 7, 1995, following the April 26 airing of The Making of Jurassic Park. Some 68.12 million people tuned in, garnering NBC a 36 percent share of all available viewers that night. Jurassic Park was the highest-rated theatrical film broadcast on television by any network compared to theatrical film ratings since April 1987. In June–July 1995, the film aired a number of times on the Turner Network Television (TNT) network.
Jurassic Park became the highest-grossing film released worldwide up to that time, replacing Spielberg's own E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). It grossed $3.1 million from Thursday night screenings in the United States and Canada on June 10, and $50.1 million in its first weekend from 2,404 theaters, breaking the opening weekend record set by Batman Returns the year before. Jurassic Park held that record until 1995 when Batman Forever took it. It grossed a record $81.7 million by the end of its first week, and reached $100 million in a record nine days, and remained at number one for three weeks. It eventually grossed $357 million in the US and Canada, ranking second of all-time behind E.T. Box Office Mojo estimates the film sold over 86.2 million tickets in the US in its initial theatrical run.
Jurassic Park also did very well in international markets and was the first film to gross $500 million overseas, surpassing the record $280 million overseas gross of E.T. In Brazil, it also set an opening weekend record with a gross of $1,738,198 from 141 screens. It went on to break further opening records around the world including in the United Kingdom, Japan, India, South Korea, Mexico, Germany, Australia, Taiwan, Italy, Denmark, South Africa and France. In Japan, the film grossed $8.4 million from 237 screens in two days (including previews).
In the United Kingdom, Jurassic Park also beat the opening weekend record set by Batman Returns with a gross of £4.875 million ($7.4 million) from 434 screens, including a record £443,000 from Thursday night previews, and also beat Terminator 2: Judgment Day's opening week record, with £9.2 million. The film held the UK record until it was beaten by Independence Day in 1996. After 12 days of grossing over £1 million a day, Jurassic Park was the eighth highest-grossing film of all time in the UK. After just three weeks, it became the highest-grossing, surpassing Ghost and eventually doubling the record with a gross of £47.9 million. It spent a record eight consecutive weekends at the top of the UK box office. Jurassic Park would remain as Europe's box office leader before being surpassed by Aladdin.
In Australia, the film had the widest release ever and was the first to open with a one-day gross of more than A$1 million, grossing A$5,447,000 (US$3.6 million) in its first four days from 192 screens, beating the opening record of Terminator 2 and the weekly record set by The Bodyguard with a gross of A$6.8 million. In the same weekend, it also set an opening record in Germany with a gross of DM 16.8 million ($10.5 million) from 644 screens. In Italy, it had the widest release ever in 344 theaters and grossed a record Lire 9.5 billion ($6.1 million). After 115 days of release, it surpassed E.T. as the highest-grossing film worldwide of all time. It eventually opened in France on October 20, 1993, and grossed a record 75 million F ($13 million) in its opening week from over 515 screens. Its first week admissions in France of almost 2.3 million surpassed the previous record set by Rambo: First Blood Part II in 1985.
The film set all-time records in, among others, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Japan (in US Dollars), Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Spain, Thailand and the United Kingdom. Ultimately the film grossed $914 million worldwide in its initial release, with Spielberg reportedly earning over $250 million, the most a director or actor had earned from one film at the time. Its record gross was surpassed in 1998 by Titanic, the first film to gross over $1 billion.
The 2011 UK release grossed £245,422 ($786,021) from 276 theaters, finishing at eleventh on the weekend box office list. The 3D re-release in 2013 opened at fourth place in the US, with $18.6 million from 2,771 locations. IMAX showings accounted for over $6 million, with the 32 percent being the highest IMAX share ever for a nationwide release. The reissue earned $45.4 million in the United States and Canada. The international release had its most successful weekend in late August, when it managed to climb to the top of the box office with a $28.8 million debut in China. This helped to bring the film's lifetime gross to $1.03 billion. Jurassic Park was the 17th, and oldest, film to surpass the $1 billion mark, and the only film by Universal to achieve this until 2015, when the studio released Furious 7, Minions, and the fourth Jurassic Park installment Jurassic World.
Jurassic Park earned an additional $374,238 in 2018 for its 25th anniversary re-release. In June 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic closing most theaters worldwide and limiting what films played, Jurassic Park returned to 230 theaters (mostly drive-ins). It grossed $517,600, finishing in first for the fourth time in its history. As of 2025, Jurassic Park remains among the 50 highest-grossing films of all time, both in the US and Canada (not adjusted for inflation) and worldwide. It also remains the highest-grossing film directed by Spielberg.
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively reported an approval rating of 92% based on 142 reviews, with an average rating of 8.50/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "Jurassic Park is a spectacle of special effects and lifelike animatronics, with some of Spielberg's best sequences of sustained awe and sheer terror since Jaws". Metacritic gave the film a weighted average score of 68 out of 100, based on reviews from 20 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.
Janet Maslin of The New York Times called it "a true movie milestone, presenting awe- and fear-inspiring sights never before seen on the screen [...] On paper, this story is tailor-made for Mr. Spielberg's talents [but] [i]t becomes less crisp on screen than it was on the page, with much of the enjoyable jargon either mumbled confusingly or otherwise thrown away". In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers called the film "colossal entertainment—the eye-popping, mind-bending, kick-out-the-jams thrill ride of summer and probably the year [...] Compared with the dinos, the characters are dry bones, indeed. Crichton and co-screenwriter David Koepp have flattened them into nonentities on the trip from page to screen". Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four: "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". Henry Sheehan of Sight & Sound argued: "The complaints over Jurassic Park's lack of story and character sound a little off the point", noting the story arc of Grant learning to protect Hammond's grandchildren despite his initial dislike of them. Caroline Westbrook of Empire gave the film five stars, calling it "quite simply one of the greatest blockbusters of all time".
Over the years, film critics and industry professionals have often cited Jurassic Park as one of the greatest and most influential movies in history. In 2001, the American Film Institute named Jurassic Park the 35th-most thrilling film of all time. Two years later, Empire called the first encounter with a Brachiosaurus the 28th-most magical moment in cinema. In 2004, Empire judged Jurassic Park to be the sixth-most influential film in the magazine's 15-year lifetime. Film Review, in 2005, declared the film to be one of the five most important in the magazine's 55-year history.
Jurassic Park is included in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, and in a 2007 list by The Guardian of "1000 films to see before you die". In 2008, an Empire poll of readers, filmmakers, and critics also rated it one of the 500 greatest films of all time. In a 2010 poll, the readers of Entertainment Weekly rated it the greatest summer movie of the previous 20 years. In 2014, it was ranked as one of the 50 greatest films of all time in an extensive poll undertaken by The Hollywood Reporter, which balloted every studio, agency, publicity firm and production house in the Hollywood region. In 2018, Jurassic Park was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, which deemed it "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
In 2019, Mattel produced a line of new toys, including figures based on the film's characters. The film's 30th anniversary was marked with the release of various merchandise, including new toys from Mattel and Lego, as well as an event at San Diego Comic-Con.
Jurassic Park had a wide-ranging impact, particularly as an influence on other films due to its breakthrough use of computer-generated imagery. The film is regarded as a landmark for visual effects. Film historian Tom Shone said of the film's innovation and influence, "in its way, Jurassic Park heralded a revolution in movies as profound as the coming of sound in 1927". Numerous filmmakers saw the effects as a realization that many of their visions, previously thought unfeasible or too expensive, were now possible. ILM owner George Lucas, realizing the success of creating realistic live dinosaurs by his own company, began work on the Star Wars prequel trilogy; Stanley Kubrick decided to invest in pet project A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which he later got Spielberg to direct; and Peter Jackson began to re-explore his childhood love of fantasy films, a path that led him to The Lord of the Rings and King Kong. Jurassic Park also inspired films and documentaries with dinosaurs such as the American adaptation of Godzilla, Carnosaur (in which Dern's mother Diane Ladd starred), and Walking with Dinosaurs. Winston, enthusiastic about the new technology pioneered by the film, joined with IBM and director James Cameron to form a new special effects company, Digital Domain.
Jurassic Park was also praised for its modern portrayal of dinosaurs. The film has been said to have given rise to a Jurassic Park generation: young people who were inspired to become paleontologists. Among the general public, the film also created an interest in dinosaurs, leading to increased funding for paleontology. This, combined with the rising number of paleontologists, resulted in a surge of dinosaur discoveries.
Jurassic Park's impact extended internationally. It started a trend of dubbing US films into Hindi for the Indian market and was the highest-grossing US film in India at the time with a gross of $3 million. In Canada, the Toronto Raptors, a National Basketball Association team founded in 1995, was named so as a result of the film's popularity. In addition, fans watch the team's playoff games on a large television at Maple Leaf Square, nicknamed Jurassic Park.
Jurassic Park was the beginning of a multimedia franchise. Following the film's success, Crichton wrote a sequel novel, titled The Lost World and released in 1995. Spielberg and Koepp returned respectively as director and writer for the 1997 film adaptation, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. Crichton did not write any further novels in the series, although additional films would be made, featuring previously unused elements from the two books. Spielberg has served as executive producer for subsequent films, which include Jurassic Park III (2001), Jurassic World (2015), Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018), Jurassic World Dominion (2022), and Jurassic World Rebirth (2025). The original film remains the highest rated among critics.
The film's story was originally continued in numerous comics, starting in 1993. Two video game sequels, Jurassic Park 2: The Chaos Continues and Jurassic Park: Rampage Edition, would also be released in 1994. Jurassic Park: Operation Genesis, based on the film's concept of building a dinosaur theme park, was released in 2003. Two subsequent games are set shortly after the events of the film – Jurassic Park: The Game, released in 2011; and the upcoming Jurassic Park: Survival, announced in 2023.
The film's success also resulted in theme park attractions, with Jurassic Park: The Ride opening at Universal Studios Hollywood in 1996. Other Universal parks would subsequently add their own Jurassic Park rides. Universal Islands of Adventure, opened in Orlando, Florida in 1999, has an entire section dedicated to Jurassic Park that includes many rides and attractions.