Every Michael Crichton Movie Adaptation, Ranked

“Renaissance man” is used a lot in the entertainment industry, mostly referring to a writer/director, actor/musician, or even all of the above. Properly defined, a “renaissance man” is someone who thrives in multiple fields in the arts and sciences. So when I think of one, I think of the late, great Michael Crichton. 

Crichton was a polymath before it was popular — and before he hit it big.  He dreamed of being a writer and published his first piece before he could drive. He graduated from Harvard (where he also played basketball), taught Anthropology at Cambridge, UK and came back to Cambridge, Mass to earn his MD while writing pulp page-turners under pseudonyms on the side. Crichton finally became famous writing under his own name with 1969’s “The Andromeda Strain.” He never looked back until his death from cancer in 2008.

A “Michael Crichton” list can be many things — and super long. We’re only ranking the movie adaptations of his published works, so there are no movies he wrote and directed that aren’t based on his books, like “Westworld.” We’re also only including the movie adaptations for “Jurassic Park” books he wrote, so no “Jurassic Park III” or “Jurassic World” and its sequels. What we’re left with is still a long list, and testament to Crichton’s prolific prowess. We can debate whether these movies are better than the book, but there’s no denying Crichton’s sui generis skills as a storyteller. 

For proof, check out our ranking of every Michael Crichton adaptation.

Sadly, the last Michael Crichton adaptation released while he was alive is also the worst: “Timeline.” Based on Crichton’s 1999 bestselling novel, the 2003 movie tells the tale of a modern-day archaeologist who gets plunged back in time to 14th-century France thanks to a wormhole created by a crazy corporate titan. The professor’s students, including his son, go back in time to rescue him, finding themselves also plunged in a war between England and France (they did that a lot back in the day). 

In the film, Billy Connolly plays the professor, Paul Walker is his son, David Thewlis is the mad scientist, and Gerard Butler is along for the ride as the professor’s prized pupil who’s having the time of his life in medieval Europe. Crichton’s novels were always heavily researched, and he made you feel smart by making weighty topics accessible, and in this case, it’s quantum physics, multiverse theory, and medieval history. Unfortunately, the movie takes an “insert science here” approach, using it as a cheesy plot device to get to the mediocre Middle Ages battle scenes. 

Timeline” was also one of the last movies from director Richard Donner of “Superman: The Movie,” “The Goonies,” and “Lethal Weapon” fame. Considering Hollywood’s still cribbing from both guys, we’d say Crichton and Donner’s respective legacies are secure.

Dustin Hoffman, Samuel L. Jackson, and Sharon Stone step into a 200-year old underwater alien space station — and a terrible movie comes out. This isn’t a joke, it’s “Sphere.” Add in Barry Levinson behind the camera — who won the Academy Award for “Rain Man,” while directing Dustin Hoffman to his second Oscar — plus a story based on Crichton’s bestselling book, and you should have a recipe for record-breaking success. Ya know, like Steven Spielberg and Crichton did twice already. So what happened?

Well, Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus places the blame squarely on Crichton’s material: “‘Sphere’ features an A-level cast working with B-grade material, with a story seen previously in superior science-fiction films.” Ouch. Well, a pox on your house I say! “Sphere” is a terrific book, but it wouldn’t make a great movie on the page. An HBO miniseries maybe, but not a movie. Thus, it was up to the filmmakers to make Crichton’s unique blend of info-dense suspense into a movie. The fact they didn’t is on them, not Crichton. Maybe I’m being a bit biased, so read the book, watch the movie, and you decide. Or don’t, because the movie really is pretty terrible.

Michael Crichton made his directorial debut making a TV movie based on a book he wrote under a pseudonym that another writer adapted into a screenplay. Got all that? I’m not sure that has ever happened before or since. The film is 1972’s “Pursuit,” based on Crichton’s 1972 novel “Binary,” which he published as John Lange. So yes, the dude published a novel and directed a movie based on his novel in the same year, only a few years removed from graduating from Harvard Med. Feeling inadequate, yet?

Well, if it makes you feel any better, “Pursuit” isn’t very good. I mean, it’s okay for an “ABC Movie of the Week,” but it ain’t exactly Steven Spielberg’s “Duel” when it comes to great TV movies. Federal agent Steven Graves (Ben Gazzara) must stop a political extremist (E.G. Marshall, a.k.a. Ellen Griswold’s dad in “Christmas Vacation”) from releasing nerve gas during a political convention, with a babyfaced Martin Sheen along for the ride. Uh, sounds incredible. And it was … as a book. Even though Crichton became a capable director, he was still wet behind the ears during his first feature. But give the dude a break, he was only 30.

“Rising Sun” was the first Michael Crichton adaptation to follow the tidal wave of “Jurassic Park.” How close? It literally came out less than two months later, so Crichton had two adaptations in the box office top ten at the same time: “Rising Sun” at number one with $15 million and “Jurassic Park” at number five with $6.8 million in its eighth week. 

“Rising Sun” stars Sean Connery as John Conner and Wesley Snipes as Web Smith, two detectives hired to investigate a murdered prostitute found in a Los Angeles skyscraper. Things get saucy when security cam footage showing the murder appears to have been sabotaged, meaning the Japanese corporation that owns the building is staging a coverup.

I’m a broken record at this point, but the book is much better than the movie, and it’s a textbook definition of a pulse-pounding page turner you can’t help but finish in one weekend. The movie? Not so much. It’s a bit of a drag at just over two hours, whereas the book breezes by over its roughly 11.5 hours. Sadly, Connery and Snipes don’t have much chemistry, nor do they seem particularly enthused to be there. Watching it, you won’t be either.

“Eaters of the Dead” sounds like a sweet death metal band or another AMC “Walking Dead” spinoff. Alas, it was only a bestselling 1976 novel from Michael Crichton. While most Crichton novels got the big-screen treatment pretty quickly, “Eaters of the Dead” wasn’t adapted for 23 years. By 1999, Crichton was a brand unto himself, as multi-time New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind “Jurassic Park.” Everybody wanted in the Crichton business. They just didn’t want to keep that sick title. Thus, we get “The 13th Warrior.” 

Antonio Banderas plays an exiled Muslim ambassador, who takes up with a crew of crude and uncouth Norsemen. Upon reaching the depths of Northland, they encounter something even more horrifying than Viking customs:- an unseen entity that devours human flesh in the dead of night. Despite being directed by “Die Hard” and “Predator” maestro John McTiernan, “The 13th Warrior” lacks the machismo the story demands. While not a bad movie by any means, “The 13th Warrior” feels like it’s holding back for commercial reasons, evidenced by its tame title. Too bad it tanked with $61 million worldwide on a barbaric $125 million budget. We feel “Eaters of the Dead” was just wrong place, wrong time. Somebody call Robert Eggers, because he needs to adapt this book!

In 1995, Crichton became the first author to have the #1 book (“The Lost World”), movie (“Congo”), and TV show (“E.R.”) at the same time. Then he did it the following year with “Airframe” (book), “Twister” (movie), and TV show (“E.R.” again). Based on Crichton’s 1980 novel, “Congo” finds Laura Linney playing an electronics expert who leads a team into the remote reaches of the African jungle. Joining her journey are the always welcome Ernie Hudson as a mercenary guide, the also always welcome Tim Curry as the bad guy, Dylan Walsh as a primatologist, and a host of special effects as Amy, his gorilla who uses sign language to “talk” through a voice machine. Oh, and Jimmy Buffett has a cameo as a pilot, which goes great with his cameo in “Jurassic World.”

Alas, their mission is met with a troop of killer gray gorillas they have to fight with a LASER! So what’s the problem, again? Well, Rotten Tomatoes’ critics consensus calls the film, “a suspenseless adventure that betrays little curiosity about the scientific concepts it purports to care about.” That’s on the movie, not Crichton’s book, which will leave you feeling like Dian Fossey from “Gorillas In The Mist” after reading. While “Congo” has a reputation as the “talking monkey movie,” there’s a reason it has a reputation as an ape$h!t campy cult classic: gorillas vs. lasers.

Michael Crichton wrote his second novel (under his own name), “The Terminal Man,” in 1972. Just two years later, it was made into a movie, showing that even in the early 1970s, movie producers knew Crichton was big business. The book is about Harry Benson, a man with violent seizures. Literally, Benson blacks out and beats up people, nearly to death. To cure his seizures, Benson undergoes an experimental procedure, where electrodes are placed deep into his brain’s pleasure centers. Benson figures out how to trigger the pulses himself, which sets him on a murderous rampage. 

George Segal plays Benson in the movie, which does a capable job of adapting Crichton’s book. “The Terminal Man” doesn’t stand the test of time as a masterpiece of suspense by any means, but it warrants a watch for Crichton fans for its unsettling atmosphere. If you’re familiar with the trappings of pre-“Star Wars,” 1970s sci-fi films, “The Terminal Man” will feel like a nice gentle pulse to your brain’s pleasure center.

Calling “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” an “adaptation” of a Michael Crichton novels feels a wee bit disingenuous. Sure, they’re both about dinosaurs, so there’s that. The 1997 movie really feels more like a Steven Spielberg film loosely based (and I do mean loosely) on Crichton’s book. But hey, Spielberg was no stranger to taking “creative liberties” with an author’s work if it made a better movie (just ask Peter Benchley with “Jaws”). So is the movie better than the book? Eh, I’d say they’re very different.

Crichton’s 1995 “The Lost World” (no “Jurassic Park” subtitle) is set six years after John Hammond’s death (yes, he died in the book) and Jurassic Park’s destruction. Eccentric mathematician Ian Malcom (despite being presumed dead in the book) leads a team of scientists to the second InGen island, Isla Sorna. That’s where the similarities with Spielberg’s movie end, as the 1997 film (in true Spielberg fashion) turns the volume up to 11. The biggest difference is Spielberg added a narratively unnecessary  — but let’s be honest, freaking awesome — ending with a T-rex running amok in San Diego. 

Your mileage may vary, but for my money, “The Lost World: Jurassic Park” accomplishes what it sets out to do by being a highly entertaining dinosaur action movie that may not be a thinking man’s thriller, by any means, but isn’t a painfully stupid waste of time (*cough* “Jurassic World: Dominion” *cough*) either.

Michael Crichton sold the movie rights to “Disclosure” for $1 million before it was even published. Thus, “Disclosure” the novel came out in January 1994, while the movie was released in December. Nice turnaround. “Disclosure” is about Tom Sanders (Michael Douglas), a tech executive who loses his big promotion to his former fling Meredith Johnson (Demi Moore). A late night tryst for old times’ sake ends with Sanders rejecting Johnson’s advances, only for the seductress to sue Sanders for sexual harassment.

Crichton must have written “Disclosure” planning on the movie to star Douglas and Moore because both of their screen personas perfectly match their characters. Douglas had established his A-list reputation starring as the slimeball you love to hate (or hate to love, I’m not sure which) in “Wall Street,” “Fatal Attraction,” and “Basic Instinct.” Meanwhile, Moore made a name for herself playing objects of ardor men couldn’t resist in “Ghost” and “Indecent Proposal.” Funnily enough, Crichton published “Dealing,” the 1970 novel he co-wrote with his brother Douglas, as “Michael Douglas,” a portmanteau of their names.

Modern audiences may find the premise a bit cringe (“sexual harassment at work — but it’s a woman preying on a man!”). That said, both the novel and movie manage to turn trash into treasure. Want a thoughtful examination about workplace harassment? This ain’t it. Want a smutty melodrama get A-list treatment? “Disclosure” is for you. 

Michael Crichton earned his medical degree from Harvard, but still dreamed of making a living as a writer. He published several pulp page turners under the pseudonym John Lange, but came up with the pen name Jeffrey Hudson for his “more serious” medical fiction, “A Case of Need” in 1968. Borrowing from his medical background, Crichton’s “A Case of Need” is a medical mystery about a pathologist named Dr. John Berry, who investigates the presumed murder of a patient at a Boston hospital, only to find he is being targeted for murder too. 

The 1972 film adaptation, “The Carey Treatment,” was directed by Blake Edwards (“Breakfast At Tiffany’s,” “The Pink Panther,” “10”) and stars James Coburn as Dr. Peter Carey. Why the new name? Maybe because “The Berry Treatment” sounds like a new age health treatment pushed by Gwyneth Paltrow. Anyway, like “The Terminal Man,” “The Carey Treatment” belongs to its time, but it functions perfectly well as an enjoyable if forgettable early 70s suspense thriller. Coburn couldn’t not be cool, even if he tried, and he commands “The Carey Treatment” with a proper movie star performance. Still, Edwards was a strange choice to direct, given he was mainly a comedy guy, and he disowned the movie after battling with producers.

Michael Crichton wrote five novels under pseudonyms before publishing his first novel under his own name in 1969. It turned out to be a pretty good idea, as “The Andromeda Strain” was a nationwide bestseller, making Crichton a household name (amongst readers at least). “The Andromeda Strain” is about a military satellite that returns to Earth in Arizona, but it comes packed with an uninvited guest: a deadly alien microorganism that annihilates an entire town. Now, a team of scientists must investigate the mysterious microbe before it escapes to wipe out the entire planet.

Little wonder readers were at their edge of their seats, because my knuckles are white just writing about it. You’ll still find “The Andromeda Strain” at or near the top of most “Best Michael Crichton Books Ever” list, and for good reason: The hungry young writer comes out swinging, with a suspense thriller that establishes the techno-thriller genre he helped create, and would write in for the rest of his career. The 1971 movie by journeyman Robert Wise (“West Side Story,” “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”) inevitably falls short of the novel, mostly due to Wise’s choice to employ a leisurely pace despite the suspenseful subject matter. Still, Crichton’s trademark tension was there, making one of his best books also one of his best film adaptations.

The first two novels Michael Crichton published under his own name — “The Andromeda Strain” and “The Terminal Man” — were proper techno thrillers. But in 1975, Crichton thought he’d give historical fiction a try with “The Great Train Robbery.” The novel is a fictional retelling of the real Great Gold Robbery of 1855. In 1978, a film adaptation was released, written and directed by Michael Crichton himself.

Sean Connery plays a master thief who teams up with Donald Sutherland as a skilled safecracker to devise an elaborate plan to do something nobody has ever done before: rob a moving train. “The Great Train Robbery” is as fun as it sounds, a rollicking adventure punctuated by memorable characters, played with aplomb by Sean Connery and Donald Sutherland, who would go on to star in future Crichton adaptations, “Rising Sun” and “Disclosure,” respectively. But the real star is Crichton, who after having a few more films under his belt as a director proves himself to be one of the best cinematic adapters of his own material.

You knew it was going to be this, right? Both “Jurassic Park” the novel and movie are two very exceptional (and very different) experiences, each bearing the stamps of their respective storytellers, Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg. The 1990 book is Crichton’s best, and it manages to brilliantly blend modern paleontological theories, complex genetic engineering principles, and even the freaking mathematical concept of chaos theory into a fast-paced thriller that will make you feel smarter for having read it. Spielberg’s 1993 movie is … not that. But ya know what? When it comes to big-budget, blockbuster filmmaking, movies don’t come any better than “Jurassic Park.” 

From the epic scenes, like the t-rex saving the day from the velociraptors, to the little moments, like the water in the cup rippling with each pounding step, “Jurassic Park” is packed with the “Spielberg Touches” that make him the best blockbuster movie director ever. “Jurassic Park” is funny, scary, action-packed, and awe-inspiring, sometimes in same scene. But don’t count out the cast, including Richard Attenborough and Jeff Goldblum giving scene-stealing, career-defining performances. And of course, the maestro John Williams, whose score you’re probably humming in your head right now. 

But though it was Spielberg’s vision, it was born from Crichton’s brain. As an adventure 65 million years in the making, there aren’t enough words to describe what makes “Jurassic Park’ the best Michael Crichton adaptation.