Cultural depictions have also created or reinforced misconceptions about dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, such as inaccurately and anachronistically portraying a sort of "prehistoric world" where many kinds of extinct animals (from the Permian animal Dimetrodon to mammoths and cavemen) lived together, and dinosaurs living lives of constant combat.

For preschoolers, there was the educational television show Barney & Friends starting in 1992; their older siblings had the 1988 animated movie The Land Before Time and its increasing line of direct to video sequels (12 by 2008). Dinosaurs, a television sitcom, parodied humans and other television shows. Of particular note is Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel, Jurassic Park, the popularity of which led to a series of films and other media. the children's book We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (later adapted into a feature-length film of the same name).

The first of these, Jurassic Park, married advanced CGI with advances in scientific knowledge of dinosaurs. Dinosaur was the most expensive movie in 2000, but was a box-office success. The falling cost of computer-generated effects also has recently allowed the increased production of documentaries for television; the award-winning 1999 BBC series Walking with Dinosaurs, the 2001 When Dinosaurs Roamed America, the 2009 Animal Armageddon, 100 Million BC, and the 2011 Planet Dinosaur are notable examples.

The popular ideals of dinosaurs have many misconceptions, reinforced by films, books, comics, television shows, and even theme parks. Typical errors include: prehistoric humans living with dinosaurs; dinosaurs as monsters that did little else but fight; the portrayal of a kind of "prehistoric world" where all prehistoric animals are shown to exist; dinosaurs as all large; dinosaurs as stupid and slow; dinosaurs as being lizard-like and all scaled (non-feathered); the inclusion of many prehistoric animals (such as Dimetrodon, ichthyosaurs, mosasaurs, pterosaurs, and plesiosaurs) as dinosaurs; and dinosaurs as failures.