The Land Before Time is a 1988 animated adventure drama film directed and co-produced by Don Bluth from a screenplay by Stu Krieger and a story by Judy Freudberg and Tony Geiss. Its executive producers are Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Kathleen Kennedy, and Frank Marshall. The film stars the voices of Judith Barsi, Burke Byrnes, Gabriel Damon, Bill Erwin, Pat Hingle, Candace Hutson, Will Ryan and Helen Shaver. It is the first film in the Land Before Time franchise. Produced by Amblin Entertainment and Sullivan Bluth Studios, it features dinosaurs living in prehistoric times. The plot features a young brown Apatosaurus named Littlefoot, who ends up alone after his mother dies protecting him from a villainous Tyrannosaurus rex. Littlefoot flees famine and upheaval to search for the Great Valley, an area spared from devastation, where the adult dinosaurs have moved on to. On his journey, he meets four young companions: Cera, an orange Triceratops, Ducky, a green Saurolophus, Petrie, a brown Pteranodon, and Spike, a green Stegosaurus. The film explores issues of prejudice between the different species and the hardships they endure in their journey as they are guided by the spirit of Littlefoot's mother and forced to deal with the Tyrannosaurus rex that killed her.

Plot

During the age of the dinosaurs, a famine forces groups of dinosaurs to look for an oasis known as the Great Valley. A "longneck" dinosaur hatches a single baby named Littlefoot. Years later, Littlefoot encounters and plays with Cera, a young "three-horn" dinosaur until her father intervenes and says "three-horns never play with longnecks". In the evening Littlefoot plays with Cera again until a large "sharptooth" dinosaur pursues them. Littlefoot's mother eventually comes to their rescue, but is fatally wounded. During the struggle, an earthshake strikes and splits the land, swallowing up the sharptooth and dividing Littlefoot, Cera, and other dinosaurs from their herds; several die in the process. Before dying, Littlefoot's wounded mother gives him some words of advice about finding the Great Valley: "let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen closely". Confused, and in-grief, Littlefoot meets Rooter, an older dinosaur who consoles him. Littlefoot is then guided by his mother's voice telling him to follow the sun to the Great Valley. First, he must pass several landmarks, such as a rock formation that resembles a Longneck and the "Mountains that Burn".