Dinosaur 13

Plot

The film depicts the event of 1990, when American paleontologist Sue Hendrickson working with Pete Larson and his team discovered the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex ever found (nicknamed "Sue") while digging in the badlands of South Dakota. The skeleton was seized from Larson by the federal government, followed by a ten-year-long battle with the FBI, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and Maurice Williams, the landowner on whose property the bones were discovered. Pete Larson also spent 18 months in prison.

Reception

The film received positive response from critics. Dennis Harvey, in his review for Variety, called the documentary "engrossing". Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film positive review and said that it involves a "story of scientific discovery and petty politics". Eric Kohn from Indiewire in his review said that "A subset of the recent scientific-documentary-as-thriller tradition epitomized by The Cove and Blackfish, Todd Douglas Miller's Dinosaur 13 is both awe-inspiring and tragic."

After the film aired, The Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, a society of professional academic paleontologists that depend largely on government grants for research as well as access to publicly-owned land to carry out their work on, issued a statement of full support for legally-protecting fossils on public land and criticized Dinosaur 13 for implying that government ownership of fossil specimens impedes paleontological science.