The Top 10 Deaths by Dinosaur in Jurassic Park

Originally published July 2, 2025. This article ranks the most imaginative and gruesome deaths throughout the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchises.

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The Jurassic Park and Jurassic World films combine science fiction with horror. These dinosaurs inspire terror and fascination alike. Their size, their teeth, their every little detail make them the stars of the show. From the very first raptor kill, audiences were caught in the dinosaurs’ claws. Across the franchises, people were killed by dinosaurs in ways ranging from humorous to bone-chilling.

The humans of the franchise, however, are arguably the villains. They are the ones who subject fellow humans to the dangerous presence of dinosaurs, bringing back these prehistoric animals and forcing them into an unfamiliar time period.

With that in mind, many of the humans in the franchise are greedy backstabbers, like Eli Mills, or heartless hunters such as Ken Wheatley. Their horrific actions are the unforgivable ones. But the dinosaurs? They’re just bein’ their dino selves. When they kill, it’s nothing personal … mostly. Here’s our ranking of the best deaths by dinosaur in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchises.

The Mosquito Ranking Scale goes from 1 to 5 — 1 being a substantial dino death but 5 being the apex predator.

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10. Baby T-Rex & Peter Ludlow – The Lost World: Jurassic Park

• Kill Title: Nobody Puts Baby T-Rex in a Corner
• Kill Ranking: 1 Mosquito

Everybody’s gotta start someplace, right? Even one of history’s most prolific killers in the animal kingdom, the Tyrannosaurus rex, has to take some baby steps when learning how to hunt. That’s why this heartwarming father-son scene starts the Dino Death List off right. The T-rex helps his baby T-rex learn how to kill using Peter Ludlow, John Hammond’s nephew, as a target.

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9. Lawyer on Toilet – Jurassic Park

• Kill Title: Toiletosaurus rex
• Kill Ranking: 1.5 Mosquitoes

Truly, you can’t go wrong with the classics. And if you’ve seen this scene, you can’t unhear that squelch as Donald Gennaro’s flesh is ripped apart by the T-rex’s teeth in the torrential rain. What a crappy way to go.

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8. Robert Burke & the Waterfall – The Lost World

• Kill Title: Don’t Go Chasing Waterfalls
• Kill Ranking: 2 Mosquitoes

As the group hides from the T-rex behind a waterfall, paleontologist Robert Burke believes he is safe. However, he’s quickly snatched up by the dinosaur and his death plays into an ongoing theme of Jurassic Park: The most unassuming aspects of nature can have catastrophic consequences. For example, unexpected reproduction due to frog DNA and … a snake in your shirt.

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7. Dieter Stark & Compies – The Lost World

• Kill Title: It’s Compy-cated
• Kill Ranking: 2.5 Mosquitoes

With Dieter’s death, Jurassic Park once again delves into classic horror movie techniques. Sometimes the scariest deaths are the ones you can’t see. Instead, you must imagine them for yourself — aided, of course, by dinosaur screeches and human screams. When that water runs red, you know it’s bad.

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6. Billy Brennan in the Aviary – Jurassic Park III

• Kill Title: Pecking Order
• Kill Ranking: 3 Mosquitoes

Billy Brennan’s demise is one of the few noble deaths caused by a dinosaur. Usually, the person being killed is a contemptible human but in this case, Billy was a hero. Though he managed to save Eric within the terrifying, fog-filled aviary, Billy was tragically pecked at and snatched away by vicious pteranodons.

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5. Nedry & Dilophosaurus – Jurassic Park

• Kill Title: Say It Don’t Spray It
• Kill Ranking: 3.75 Mosquitoes

A classic example of the villainous character whose death is more of a “ha ha” than an “oh no!” is Dennis Nedry. While everyone else is simply trying to survive, Nedry tries to profit from the chaos. He wants to sell stolen dino DNA. However, his plan is foiled by a mischievous dilophosaurus, whose grin hides a poisonous surprise.

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4. Robert Muldoon & Raptor – Jurassic Park

• Kill Title: (Clever) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun
• Kill Ranking: 4 Mosquitoes

As hunter Robert Muldoon stalks through the jungle, we hear those unsettling chirps. The bushes shake as if they’re alive. With one last screech, a velociraptor erupts from the foliage and pounces on Muldoon. Extreme closeups and shrill vocalizations heighten the horror after Muldoon delivers his famous last words, “Clever girl.”

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3. Ken Wheatley & Indoraptor – Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

• Kill Title: You Can’t Handle the Tooth
• Kill Ranking: 4.5 Mosquitoes

The horrific hybrid created by InGen, the Indoraptor, is visually and behaviorally sinister. But in this scene, Ken Wheatley plans to extract a tooth from the sleeping Indoraptor’s mouth to use for his own devices. Sound familiar? Unfortunately for Wheatley, the viciously intelligent Indoraptor is only faking his nap. Wheatley never does get to make that necklace.

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2. Tall Grass Scene – The Lost World

• Kill Title: Pain in the Grass
• Kill Ranking: 4.5 Mosquitoes

In a scene that mimics many famous horror movies, the group must pass through a field of tall grass at night. There are no dinosaurs in sight but, one by one, the humans are pulled down with the swish of a tail. Against the pack-hunting tactics of the raptors, we’re all just prey waiting to be torn apart.

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1. Zara Young Gets Eaten – Jurassic World

• Kill Title: Dinosaur Turducken
• Kill Ranking: 5 Mosquitoes

Throughout these films, the most memorable deaths trick viewers into a sigh of relief. “Oh good, they’re going to make it after all.” Except, as is the case with personal assistant Zara Young, just when you think it’s safe — danger strikes. Young meets her death caught in the snapping beak of a pteranodon, which is then devoured by a monstrous mosasarus. Talk about a combo meal.

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Honorable mosquito mention goes to the random man in San Diego eaten by the rampaging T-rex in The Lost World — a cameo by David Koepp, the screenwriter of Jurassic Park and The Lost World.

What’s your favorite death scene in the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World franchises, including the latest entry, Jurassic World Rebirth?

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