Classification of Cryolophosaurus is difficult because it has a mix of primitive and advanced characteristics.
The femur has traits of early theropods, while the skull resembles much later species of the clade Tetanurae, like China's Sinraptor and Yangchuanosaurus.
This led Paul Sereno et al. (
1994) to place Cryolophosaurus in the taxon Allosauridae.
Originally, Hammer and colleagues suspected that Cryolophosaurus might be a ceratosaur or even an early abelisaur, with some traits convergent with those of more advanced tetanurans, but ultimately concluded that it was itself the earliest known member of the tetanuran group.
While a subsequent study by Hammer (along with Smith and Currie) again recovered Cryolophosaurus as a tetanuran, a later (2007) study by the same authors found that it was more closely related to Dilophosaurus and Dracovenator.
Sterling Nesbitt et al. (
2009), using the characters of Tawa found Cryolophosaurus to be a neither dilophosaurid nor averostran neotheropod but instead the sister group of a clade composed of dilophosaurids and averostrans.
However, in 2012, Matthew Carrano found that Cryolophosaurus was a tetanuran, related to Sinosaurus, but unrelated to Dilophosaurus.

The following family tree illustrates a synthesis of the relationships of the early theropod groups compiled by Hendrickx et al.
in 2015.
Classification of Cryolophosaurus is difficult because it has a mix of primitive and advanced characteristics. The femur has traits of early theropods, while the skull resembles much later species of the clade Tetanurae, like China's Sinraptor and Yangchuanosaurus. This led Paul Sereno et al. (1994) to place Cryolophosaurus in the taxon Allosauridae. Originally, Hammer and colleagues suspected that Cryolophosaurus might be a ceratosaur or even an early abelisaur, with some traits convergent with those of more advanced tetanurans, but ultimately concluded that it was itself the earliest known member of the tetanuran group. While a subsequent study by Hammer (along with Smith and Currie) again recovered Cryolophosaurus as a tetanuran, a later (2007) study by the same authors found that it was more closely related to Dilophosaurus and Dracovenator. Sterling Nesbitt et al. (2009), using the characters of Tawa found Cryolophosaurus to be a neither dilophosaurid nor averostran neotheropod but instead the sister group of a clade composed of dilophosaurids and averostrans. However, in 2012, Matthew Carrano found that Cryolophosaurus was a tetanuran, related to Sinosaurus, but unrelated to Dilophosaurus.
The following family tree illustrates a synthesis of the relationships of the early theropod groups compiled by Hendrickx et al. in 2015.
Cryolophosaurus