Ice Age is a saga that includes 5 episodes: Ice Age 1 (2002), Ice Age - The Meltdown (2006), Ice Age - The Dawn of the Dinosaurs (2009), Ice Age - Continental Drift (2012), Ice Age - Collision Course (2016). The first three episodes were directed by Carlos Saldanha, the fourth and fifth by Mike Thurmeier.
In all five episodes, the plot revolves around three unlikely and very different friends: Sid, a groung sloth unable to care for himself, Manny, a woolly mammoth, and Diego, a saber-toothed cat.
The trio make its first meeting in Ice Age 1 where, to save a baby, who must be brought back to his tribe, they are forced to form a herd, a herd that will not be released from that moment and will be destined to live many adventures.
They will have to deal with glacial melting in the Ice Age 2, where Ellie, a female mammoth, joins the group with her opossum Eddie and Crash brothers. Initially Ellie believed to be an opossum because it was raised by a family of that species. The new herd must also face two monstrous and famished marine reptiles from the prehistoric era, Maelstrom and Cretaceous, survived because they were frozen in the ice.
In the Ice Age 3 - The Dawn of the Dinosaurs, to save Sid from the mouths of a T-Rex, the entire herd is catapulted into a prehistoric world, always unknown to them in a subterranean cave, full of dinosaurs of all species. Here our friends meet Buck, a weasel with a leaf on his right eye that helps them to survive in a hostile environment and full of dangers. Our friends have to deal with very dangerous dinosaurs, but especially Rudy, a large albino baryonyx, that is a Buck's enemy. At the end, however, the entire herd managed to save Sid and return to the glacial world with a new member, not Buck, who decided to stay in the underground world, but Peaches the little mammoth, daughter of Ellie and Manfred, born in the prehistoric world during Sid's quest.
In the Ice Age 4, the herd, due to the separation of the continents, is forced to divide, Ellie and Peaches, now adolescent, remain on the land, while Sid, Manny and Diego are trapped on a huge floating icerberg that starts sailing in the ocean. The three friends are so forced to fight with a group of pirates commanded by Captain Gutt, a Gigantopithecus and his first officer, a saber-toothed cat named Shira. Sid, Manny and Diego, thanks to their union, have the best on the bad guys and to reunite with Ellie and Peaches adding a new element to the group, Shira becoming Diego's companion.
In the Ice Age 5, the danger for our friends is represented by a large meteorite that is in collision with Earth and causing a meteor shower. The group must leave their home and embark on a long journey to save themself. During their journey they find Buck who, escaped from the world of dinosaurs, has unknowingly released three fierce dromaeosaur. But as always the group will manage to get out of it.
In all the episodes, the common element of the misfortunes of our friends is Scrat, a squirrel, in love with an acorn who, trying to keep it safe, always causes inadvertently planetary catastrophes.