All 6 Ice Age Movies, Ranked From Worst To Best

It's sometimes overwhelming to think of how many Ice Age movies are out there. Over the course of more than two decades, there've been six entries in this saga and all but a solitary Disney + spin-off have gone to theaters. Blue Sky Studios, the animation house behind these films, closed its doors in 2021, and yet the Ice Age franchise goes on. A new installment is even right around the corner, with Disney/20th Century Studios planning to launch "Ice Age: Boiling Point" in February 2027. While the ancient animals they are based on had a finite existence, the Ice Age movies cannot and will not stop.

Given their longevity, not to mention being one of the highest grossing animated franchises in history, it's well worth asking what's going on with these movies artistically. What is the value that lies within these animated family comedies that have clearly struck a chord with the public? Ranking all six Ice Age movies from worst to best certainly reflects how this saga, especially in its later entries, has been coasting creatively. Still, the higher peaks of this franchise illuminates why audiences have latched onto Manny the Mammoth (Ray Romano) and friends.

Those successful laughs and bursts of poignancy make it clear how "Ice Age" has endured despite its many, sometimes insufferable, woes. Perhaps that's inevitable when you're a saga with this many installments.

A little under a year after shutting down Blue Sky Studios, the Mouse House rubbed salt into the wounds of that development by unleashing "The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild" on Disney+, a cheapie sequel entirely devoid of any input from Blue Sky artists. This title focusing on Buck (Simon Pegg) and possums Crash (Vincent Tong) and Eddie (Aaron Harris) reeked of many elements that define classic direct-to-video animated sequels, including throwing out most of the old voice actors (only Pegg returned from prior entries) and jarringly cheaper animation.

The last few theatrical Ice Age movies succumbed to subpar creative instincts, yet the nadir of those features looked like "The Triplets of Belville" compared to "Buck Wild." This motion picture was nothing short of dreadful, painfully radiating a phoned in energy. None of the gags worked, while elevating supporting players like Buck, Crash, and Eddie to lead status made those characters intolerable. There's little variety between these madcap critters, rendering their antics torturous. 

The budgetary restrictions of the animation, meanwhile, were constantly apparent. Even for a feature dumped onto Disney+, "The Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild" looked shockingly cheap. The worst theatrical exploits of the Ice Age franchise were vastly preferable to this streaming slop. What an insult to Blue Sky's legacy.

The best apocalyptic movies of all time use the end of the world to deliver imagery and performances that wouldn't be possible anywhere else. Meanwhile, it's been proven time and again that sequels can be better than their original films. "Ice Age: Collision Course," which involves these prehistoric pals dealing with an imminent asteroid that'll destroy Earth, isn't a good example of either apocalyptic cinema or a sequel. It's instead a shockingly empty enterprise whose only real redeeming factor is the solid CG animation from Blue Sky Studios.

Otherwise, the script is an utter mess, hobbling from one lame gag to the next and struggling to develop any dramatic or emotional momentum. Storytelling and pathos-based issues would be forgivable if the jokes were gut-busters, but "Ice Age: Collision Course" serves punchlines as old as wooly mammoth fossils. The cast has also grown so bloated that it's hard to get attached to anybody. Performers like Jennifer Lopez, Stephanie Beatriz, and Keke Palmer, who'd be the centerpieces of any other movie, are just background props in this excessively crowded production.

Not even the Scrat antics (which send this acorn-fixated critter into outer space) inspire hearty laughs this go-around. With "Ice Age: Collision Course," the franchise, already sputtering around with its previous installment, truly ran out of gas.

It's one thing to say that the Ice Age movies have been more popular overseas than in North America. It's another, though, to examine the box office numbers for "Ice Age: Continental Drift" and realize how staggeringly massive these were internationally. Released in summer 2012, "Continental Drift" grossed a gargantuan $715.92 million internationally, resulting in an $877.24 million worldwide gross. At the time of its release, only seven American movies had made more overseas.

Exploring these box office accomplishments is significantly more interesting than anything in "Ice Age: Continental Drift." This awful fourth movie isn't quite bad enough to have ruined its entire film series, but it's still a perfunctory extension of the Ice Age universe. Most of the jokes are phoned-in, while few of the new characters, like a plucky hedgehog-like critter voiced by Josh Gad or a band of evil pirates, leave an impression. What keeps this one above "Collision Course" and "Buck Wild" are fleeting elements, such as its zany animation (like Sid's body going limp after eating some dangerous berries), Wanda Sykes' committed voice-over turn as Sid's grandma, and a catchy end-credits ditty.

Otherwise, even Pangea splitting the world into different continents isn't enough to make "Continental Drift" anything beyond disposable.

It's not as loopy as the most bizarre dinosaur movies from around the world, but "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" is certainly an oddball given its collision of two eras of ancient beasts. Director Carlos Saldanha and company get some amusement out of throwing the familiar gang into a lost dino world, especially whenever Simon Pegg's Buck delivers his zany brand of aid. Buck's utter insanity provides an effective contrast to the pre-existing characters and opens up some fun new comedic doors.

Unfortunately, while "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" is more adept at comedy compared to the sequels that followed, it has some frustrating shortcomings. For starters, Queen Latifah's Ellie getting sidelined after being so prominent in "Ice Age: The Meltdown" is a tragedy. John Leguizamo's Sid also proves a tad grating when off on his own subplot without more grounded characters to bounce off of. Plus, the various action sequences, while nicely realized, sometimes amount to little more than just a lot of noise.

Still, the funniest Buck lines and the novelty of its dino-centric backdrop give "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" more of a personality than several of its sequels. Unfortunately, its flaws only get magnified in subsequent entries.

The incredibly compressed schedule that "Ice Age: The Meltdown" was made under is, unfortunately, discernible in the final product. Certain plot threads, like Sid being kidnapped by a bunch of mini-sloths, are haphazardly attached to the larger story. The film's two villains, a pair of aquatic beasties, are an afterthought, while certain jokes feel like first-draft creations. Despite these flaws, "The Meltdown" has more charms than many other Ice Age sequels mostly because of its (comparatively) smaller scale. Rather than following disparate plotlines occurring at wildly varying locations, this entry keeps its characters together and is all the better for it.

Queen Latifah's mammoth character Ellie is also a tremendously amusing addition, especially when stuck thinking she's a possum. The sight gags of this massive furry character scurrying around and "hiding" like the tiny possums she was raised by are a surprisingly durable source of laughs. The most bizarre jokes, like Scrat going to Heaven or a bunch of vultures belting out the "Oliver!" tunes "Food Glorious Food," aren't just amusing, but provide something new compared to the relatively grounded original.

Even the ticking clock of an imminent flood is a better motivator for tension than more inert sources of pressure in later installments. While clearly bearing some defects, "Ice Age: The Meltdown" is, by default, the pinnacle of Ice Age sequels. 

Arguably the most remarkable thing about revisiting the original "Ice Age" in the context of the larger franchise is how comparatively slower and darker it is. The inaugural film has plenty of outsized humor and wacky slapsticks, but it's also got sad dialogue-free sequences like Manny's cave painting flashback to losing his family that would be unthinkable in "Ice Age: Collision Course." Meanwhile, this is the only entry with human characters and their eschewing of dialogue is similarly evocative.

This reliance on visual storytelling harkens back to director Chris Wedge's earlier short film "Bunny" more than the rambunctious and excessively loud sequels that followed. Despite originating many of the most popular "Ice Age" characters, this initial installment's most unique qualities can't erase its shortcomings. Most notably, the basic and drab backgrounds (a consequence of making this with early 2000s CG animation) make "Ice Age" a rudimentary visual exercise. 

Still, more works than doesn't here. In particular, Scrat's antics have never been funnier. Other Ice Age adventures have tried topping his initial shenanigans in scope, but they've never matched the plucky humor of his digressions here. "Ice Age" hit the ground running with its creative peak, but at least its best installment is still better than entries in many animated movie franchises.