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The Best Dinosaur Documentary Series 

Ranker TV
Updated April 12, 2019 422 votes 104 voters 5.4k views 18 items

List Rules Vote up the best documentary shows about dinosaurs that have aired on television.

The best documentaries about dinosaurs are the perfect balance of fun and educational. The best dinosaur documentary series ever shown on television offers important scientific evidence and plenty of reenactments of dino life. If you’ve been looking for the best dinosaur documentaries to add some excitement to your TV nights, this list of the best dino documentary series of all time will help you figure out what needs to go into your queue.

From adorable (and dated) puppets and computer animation to the latest high tech renderings, the thing most dinosaur documentary series can offer is a chance to see dinosaurs in action. As the concept of what dinosaurs looked like keeps changing, the way dinosaurs in documentaries are portrayed changes too, which makes the shows from the '90s extra endearing. What makes dinosaur documentaries so unique is that all the reenactments are scientifically based and explained thoroughly by various talking heads. From the fossils of the 1989 Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives to the latest season of Clash of the Dinosaurs, you don't need a time machine to see dinos, you just need documentary series.

Which shows do the best job sharing details on dinosaurs? Vote up the best dinosaur documentary shows and add any documentary series about dinosaurs and prehistoric beasts that are missing.

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list ordered by
1
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1999

Actors: Kenneth Branagh, Avery Brooks, André Dussollier

Walking with Dinosaurs is a six-part documentary television miniseries that was produced by the BBC, narrated by Kenneth Branagh, and first aired in the United Kingdom, in 1999. The series was ...more
2
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The Ballad of Big Al 2001
The Ballad of Big Al is a combination biography-sequel for Walking with Dinosaurs . It focuses on an Allosaurus named Big Al and his constant struggle to survive in a world filled with danger.
3
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Walking with Monsters 2005

Actors: Kenneth Branagh

Walking with Monsters is a three-part British documentary film series about life in the Paleozoic, bringing to life extinct arthropods, fish, amphibians, synapsids, and reptiles. As with ...more
4
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Planet Dinosaur 2011

Actors: John Hurt

Planet Dinosaur, not to be confused with Dinosaur Planet, is a six-part documentary television series created by Nigel Paterson and Phil Dobree, produced by the BBC, and narrated by John Hurt, ...more
5
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2006

Actors: Nigel Marven, Rod Arthur, Suzanne McNabb

Prehistoric Park is a six-episode Docu-fiction television mini-series that premiered on ITV on 22 July 2006 and on Animal Planet on 29 October 2006. The program was produced by Impossible ...more
6
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Prehistoric Planet 2001

Actors: Ben Stiller

Prehistoric Planet is a re-version of the BBC's Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Beasts series, done by Discovery Channel and NBC for the Discovery Kids network. Though the producers kept ...more
7
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2001

Actors: Kenneth Branagh, Stockard Channing

Walking with Beasts is a 2001 six-part television documentary miniseries, produced by the BBC in the United Kingdom, narrated by Kenneth Branagh. In North America it has been retitled Walking ...more
8
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2002

Actors: Nigel Marven

Chased by Dinosaurs is a BBC program featuring Nigel Marven as a time-traveller who encounters dinosaurs in the wild. The two-part series, a sequel to Walking with Dinosaurs, was broadcast over ...more
9
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Dinosaur Revolution 2011
Dinosaur Revolution is a four-part American nature documentary produced by Creative Differences. It utilizes computer-generated imagery to portray dinosaurs and other animals from the Mesozoic ...more
10
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Sea Monsters 2003

Actors: Nigel Marven

Sea Monsters is a 2003 BBC television trilogy which used computer-generated imagery to show past life in Earth's seas. In the U.S. it was known as Chased by Sea Monsters. It was made by ...more
11
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Dinosaur Planet 2003
Dinosaur Planet, not to be confused with Planet Dinosaur, is a four-part American nature documentary first aired on Discovery Channel in 2003. It was hosted by Scott Sampson and narrated by ...more
12
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Paleoworld 1994
Paleoworld is an American documentary television series that aired on The Learning Channel from 1994 to 1997. The series focuses on paleontology and comprised a total of 50 half-hour episodes. ...more
13
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The Dinosaurs! 1992
The Dinosaurs!, American television miniseries produced by PBS in 1992, featuring some of the then-modern theories about dinosaurs and how they lived.
14
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2008

Actors: Erik Thompson

Jurassic Fight Club is a paleontology-based television series on History which premiered in the USA in July 2008. Jurassic Fight Club was hosted by George Blasing, a self-taught paleontologist. ...more
15
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Clash of the Dinosaurs 2009
Clash of the Dinosaurs is a four-part television mini-series produced by Dangerous LTD for Discovery Channel. The show premiered on December 13, 2009 with a double-episode.
16
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Prehistoric Predators 2009
Prehistoric Predators was a 2007 National Geographic Channel program based on different predators that lived in the past, including Smilodon and Megalodon. The series investigated how such ...more
17
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2009
Animal Armageddon is an American paleontology-based documentary television miniseries that originally aired from February 12, 2009 to September 24, 2009 on Animal Planet. All the prehistoric ...more
18
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Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives 1989

Actors: David Attenborough

Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives is a four-part BBC documentary series concerning the discovery of fossils. It is written and presented by David Attenborough, produced by Mike Salisbury, and was ...more