Unless you’re a diehard Ice Age fan, you’ll probably be surprised by how many movies there are in the film franchise, and it can be tough to watch the Ice Age movies in order without a list. That’s not even talking about the shorts that feature everybody’s favorite sabertoothed squirrel getting disappointed over and over again. SO, how many Ice Age movies are there? The main Ice Age film franchise consists of five feature-length films and seven short films, and we have the full list for you here including the order to watch them in so that they make sense. Even the short films have a specific order, and you might miss out on some important details or be a bit lost if you watch them out of order. Since the shorts aren’t numbered at all, it can be easy to mix them up, but we’ll show you how they fit into the larger franchise if you are going to binge watch the entire thing.
Ice Age Movies in Order – The List
1) Ice Age
Start with the first one, and some would say the best one. The original film tells the story of all the original Ice Age characters (Manny, Sid, and Diego) getting together for the first time and the adventures and difficulties they have in trying to get a human baby back together with his dad. How heartwarming!
There aren’t any prequels for this kid’s animated film series, so to watch Ice Age in order, you’ll have to start with the movie that was first released in theaters back in 2002.
The Ice Age movies were made by Blue Sky Studios, which means they fall under 20th Century Fox’s list of properties. And that means that since March 2019, all the Fox stuff belongs to Disney. So, if you are looking for how to watch the Ice Age movies in order and you want to start an Ice Age marathon, you can do that easily on Disney Plus.
2) Gone Nutty (short)
The first short and Scrat’s own little movie, Gone Nutty, is a fast-paced, slapstick humor adventure that takes place right after the events of the first movie. It was packaged with physical copies of Ice Age when the movie hit retail.
3) Ice Age: The Meltdown
The second movie depicts the end of the ice age, leading to worldwide flooding. The entire cast of colorful characters goes on a quest to find higher ground to keep them safe and at the same time discover that there are more woolly mammoths than just Manny left alive.
4) No Time for Nuts (short)
The next short is a time travelling adventure set off by Scrat’s love for acorns. He travels through time trying to secure his beloved nuts and gets into all sorts of historical hijinks. The shorts tend to go places the bigger movies in the franchise don’t, which helps set them apart by being extra wacky. You can see this short on Vimeo.
5) Surviving Sid (short)
The first an donly of the Ice Age shorts to center primarily on Scrat, Surviving Sid shows the ground sloth leading a group of campers in one set of misadventures after another. It turns out, he’s not a natural born leader.
6) Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
The next big screen feature in the franchise features a new addition to the cast- Buck. This off-kilter weasel has one eye and a knack for doing insane things. Buck, Manny, Sid and the rest of the cast travel through the center of the earth and run into the dinosaurs that live there in a very Jules Verne-like expedition.
7) Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up (short)
One of the more popular animated shorts in the series, Continental Crack-Up plays with the idea that Scrat and an acorn were the cause for all of the continents breaking from a single supercontinent and drifting apart from one another to create the world we know today.
8) Scrat’s Continental Crack-Up: Part 2 (short)
Scrat is after an acorn again in this sequel to the last animated short. This little film also serves as a teaser for the next big screen Ice Age sequel in our list.
9) Ice Age: Continental Drift
The highest grossing film in the series, Continental Drift dealt with the aftermath of Scrat’s continent splitting short, says HMV. All of the characters are older in this film by 16 years from the last movie, and Manny even has a teenage daughter to contend with.
10) Cosmic Scrat-tastrophe (short)
Scrat has another adventure that takes him to wild and wonderful places in pursuit of acorns. This time, he’s gone to space and inadvertently set off a series of events that places the Ice Age crew’s lives in peril for the next theatrical release.
11) Ice Age: Collision Course
There’s a comet headed to earth in the fifth and final big screen movie in the Ice Age series. If you are only watching the main Ice Age movies in order, you can stop here, with their plight against a series of asteroids that are hitting the earth.
12) Scrat: Spaced Out (short)
The final short pits Scrat against other acorn-hungry counterparts in space, taking place just after the events of the final film.
Now you know the answer to the question of “How many Ice Age movies are there?”. You could watch all 12 of the Ice Age movies in order or just watch the main five films and still get enough of the story to follow along. The shorts are not essential viewing if you just want the plot and don’t want to be lost, but they make for fun diversions that are usually about the adventures of Scrat. Since he is one of the funniest and most popular characters in the franchise, you would be doing yourself a favor to seek them out too.
It makes more sense to watch Ice Age in order rather than trying to watch all the shorts and then all the larger films, or trying some other mixed order. It helps to watch all the shorts as they were released, as a lot of them do tie into the main film franchise and even set things up for the next movie on the list.
Are you looking for other animated movies to watch? Why not check out Ninjai: The Little Ninja. Watch the Ninjai movie here.
Why not check out some Batman movies too! (https://www.criticalhit.net/entertainment/batman-animated-movies-in-order/)
Last Updated: April 25, 2022
