The film takes visitors to Mongolia with mesmerizing 1920s archival footage of paleontologist Roy Chapman Andrews—a larger-than-life adventurer believed to be the inspiration for the Indiana Jones character. Andrews led five American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) expeditions to the Gobi Desert and discovered there one of the greatest repositories of dinosaur remains ever found. The film then returns to that same site today with leading AMNH paleontologists Mike Novacek and Mark Norell, who have been making annual expeditions to the desert every summer since 1990. IMAX cameras follow Mike and Mark and an inspiring team of dedicated young graduate students eager to hone their dinosaur hunting skills in the field, as they set out on a hot and dusty Mad Max-like journey across the Gobi’s stark desert terrain.

Dinosaurs Alive then heads to New Mexico, one of the few places in the world where rock layers preserve the whole age of dinosaurs—from the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic Periods—and where breakthrough discoveries continue to be made in the high desert badlands. The film shows the rich history of life stretching back 220 million years and brings audiences to the fabled Ghost Ranch, where the number of fossils uncovered during the dig is staggering—revealing layers of dinosaurs and reptiles in concentrated deposits in a mass burial place. Here, the dinosaur hunters make a compelling find.

More fossils than ever are being found today. While there have been great discoveries over the last century, and we know much more about these amazing creatures than ever before, the scientific quest to find and understand dinosaurs and the world they inhabited is ongoing. Dinosaurs Alive estimates that we’ve discovered less than two percent of all the dinosaur species that once lived. For young paleontologists, the adventure is just beginning, and this spellbinding new film is sure to spark imaginings of what mysteries still lie buried beneath our feet.

Dinosaurs Alive is a production of David Clark Inc., Giant Screen Films, the Maryland Science Center, and Stardust Blue, in association with the American Museum of Natural History. The film is written and directed by two veteran filmmakers, Academy Award-nominated Bayley Silleck and Emmy Award-winning David Clark, with cinematography by Bill Reeve. Dinosaur animation was created by DamnFX, whose artists have previously created dinosaurs for the Discovery Channel specials about dinosaurs. Major funding was provided by the National Science Foundation with additional support from the Museum Film Network, and the 3D Film Interest Group. The film is distributed by Giant Screen Films of Evanston, IL.