Ice Age Movie Marathon: How To Watch The Ice Age Movies In Order

By Sarmind Safi 25 September, 2023 Movies

The Ice Age movie has become a household name for movie lovers of all ages with its tickling sense of humor, swashbuckling adventure, and a lot of heart. Ice Age has made its name as one of the most well-known animated franchises in the world, alongside other names like Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, and Hotel Transylvania.

The characters this series has given us are unforgettable, such as Manny, voiced by Ray Romano, Ellie (Queen Latifah), Shira (Jennifer Lopez), Sid (John Leguizamo), and Scrat (Chris Wedge). The Ice Age characters names have also stuck with us through the internet and social media memes and videos.

Ice Age was an offering from Blue Sky Studio which was also their feature debut. It became an instant success when it first hit the screens in 2002. This sparked a series of films as well as short films that are rooted in the original story. It also adds new characters along the way for that extra touch of madness this movie is now synonymous with.

Blue Sky Movies, unfortunately, shut down earlier in 2021 with its acquisition by Disney. They acquired the rights over its original distribution partner, 20th Century Fox. The good news, however, is that Disney is not scrapping the movie. Instead, they intend to continue the Ice Age saga, giving its audience more fun and wild adventures to go on with their beloved characters.

In December 2020, a spin-off movie titled Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild was announced. The movie was made to focus on Buck (Simon Pegg), who goes on an adventure in the Dinosaur World along with Crash and Eddie. It was released in early 2022. While it is with abetted breath we wait for the next movie in the franchise to hit our screens, it is never a bad idea to have a re-run of the entire series.

All The Ice Age Movies In Order

If you want to know how many Ice Age movies are there for your viewing pleasure, it’s a bridge you can cross when you get there. In this article, we will enumerate and explain the Ice Age movies in order. Let’s get started!

Let us set the record straight and enlist the films in order, both chronologically and by their release date. Let’s get right into it, or as Sid puts it, “bada-bing, bada-boom.”

Ice Age – March 15, 2002

Ice Age: The Meltdown – March 31, 2006

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – July 1, 2009

Ice Age: Continental Drift – July 13, 2012

Ice Age: Collision Course – July 22, 2016

Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild – January 28, 2022

The Ice Age movies in order also include short films that have been released intermittently. Here are the short films in order of their release:

Gone Nutty – November 26, 2002

No Time for Nuts – November 21, 2006

Surviving Sid – December 9, 2008

Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up – December 25, 2010

Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up: Part 2 – December 16, 2011

Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe – November 6, 2015

Scrat: Spaced Out – October 11, 2016

The Ice Age Movies and Short Films In Order

This franchise has not made any prequels yet, so your best bet is to watch the movies in their order of release. You need not watch the short films to understand the central theme of the story because they are shorter spin-offs of the characters in the films. But if you are in the mood to enjoy Ice Age fully, we suggest the following order of the films for you to watch.

Ice Age

This is the first of the franchise and was a massive hit at the box office. It begins with Sid, the silly yet empathetic sloth who has been abandoned by his own kind. He joins Manny, alone mammoth, on their mission to return a human child back to his father. Diego, a sabretoothed tiger, is ordered by the leader of his pack to get the child. The movie grossed over $383 million and got nominated at the 75th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature.

Gone Nutty

This is the first short film that was set directly after the events of the Ice Age. It depicts the story of Scrat after the human baby was delivered to his father. He is finding it tough to collect acorns as usual while trying to store up as much as he can. The film got nominated for the 2003 Academy Award for Animated Short Film.

Ice Age: The Meltdown

After they join forces in the previous film, Manny, Sid, and Diego face a more dangerous crisis of biblical origins. Manny also deals with the problem of him being the last surviving mammoth. He then finds his true love in Ellie, a female mammoth who thinks she is an opossum. It was a huge commercial success, earning north of $600 million at the box office.

No Time For Nuts

The franchise’s second short film follows the events of The Meltdown with the time-traveling antics of Scrat. Scrat tries to find a place to hide his acorn after he gets it back. He, however, ends up digging up a long-buried time machine. He switches it on with his slovenly, unassuming maneuvers. Also, he gets hurled into numerous adventures spanning various points in universal history.

Surviving Sid

This short film is entirely different from its predecessors because it focuses on the adventures of Sid. It is set two weeks after the events of Ice Age: The Meltdown. Sid tries to settle into his new role of being a camp counselor at a school of children. His desperate attempts to pacify the children lead to some of the most hilarious fails, reinstating why he is unfit for the job.

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs

This movie features the debut of the one-eyed, mentally unstable weasel called Buck. He helps Manny and the herd on their rescue search for Sid from the underground world of dinosaurs. It is a subtle nod to the theory of hollow earth. Manny and Ellie welcome their first child, while Crash and Eddie find their new role model in Buck.

Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up

This movie was released alongside Gulliver’s Travels. It is a short parody film depicting the continental drift. It centers around the misadventures of Scrat while it poorly explains the creation of the continents.

Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up: Part 2

The second part of the short film was released on the same day as Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked. It teases the coming events of the Ice Age: Continental Drift. The story continues with Scrat’s infinite struggle to find the perfect acorn.

Ice Age: Continental Drift

This feature is set 16 years after the events of Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Manny and Ellie’s daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer) is now a teenager. The herd is set to face new earth-splitting disasters caused by the aftermath of Scrat’s problematic adventures. While at it, they also have personal issues to resolve. The film collected $877 million worldwide and went on to become the highest-grossing animated film of 2012.

Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe

This is a five-minute long short film that encompasses the beginning of the next film in the series Ice Age: Collision Course. This time, Scrat’s pursuit of an acorn has led him to outer space. It results in the imminent disaster the characters are set to face in the fifth movie of the franchise.

Ice-Age: Collision Course

This movie follows the herd who are reunited with Buck in their attempt to save the different populations of animals that reside on Earth. Scrat’s infamous exploits have caused unforeseen devastation, and this time, Earth will be hit by asteroids. The film was a success but could not be compared to its previous ventures. It collected a total of $408 million worldwide.

Scrat: Spaced Out

This is set at the end of the events of Collision Course, which deals with Scrat’s unending saga of getting his acorn. This time, he is set to fight three other Scrats from outer space, a.k.a. Scratzons, in order to get back his beloved acorn, which he again fails quite hilariously inspite of fighting bravely.

Ice Age: Adventures Of Buck Wild

Buck, Crash, and Eddy try to keep the Lost World from being overtaken by dinosaurs as they set out to find a place of their own. Lori Forte talked about shifting the franchise direction towards a whole new world, “I’ve really honestly been living in the Ice Age for the last 20 years. I’ve been living with all these saber tooth tigers and mammoths and possums and weasels for so long. Just the extension, like Simon said, it’s such a great franchise to open it up and to spend time with certain characters that we can’t get to see all the time.”

She continues, “We came up with Buck for Dawn of the Dinosaurs, which was the third Ice Age film. And it obviously it’s such a lovable and eccentric and wacky and joyful and adventurous character and Simon brought all of that to life for us. I mean, he is all those things I just mentioned, eccentric and joyful and wacky and lovable and wonderful.”

Wrapping Up

Simon Pegg explains the movies perfectly, “What’s beautiful about these films is that all that stuff is there, and it makes them feel very rich and very nuanced, but it is just enormous fun. It’s ridiculously silly, it’s relentlessly funny, it’s beautiful to look at. But all of that doesn’t mean anything unless it’s founded in something meaningful and real. And these films always have been that.”

The teaming up of a mammoth, a sloth, and a sabretooth tiger leads to a series of the strangest adventures while trying their best to just survive. They try their best to keep themselves and everyone in the herd (that they keep picking up from several of their runs) safe from different adversities, as well as the oncoming Ice Age.

Whether you watch the Ice Age movies in order or as stand-alone films for some random entertainment, this one is sure to bring you the heartiest laughter and a warm dose of fun.

If you have thoughts to share or questions to ask, please leave a comment below. We would love to hear from you!

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