The classic film series Indiana Jones is composed of some timeless movies that continue to live on in pop culture, no matter how old the films are. Everyone knows the name of the part-time treasure hunter and his dangerous adventures, even if they haven’t seen the movies. In fact, these adventures have inspired other similar fictional treasure hunters to be written and turned into movies, such as Laura Croft, The Mummy, and, more recently, Uncharted, with their Indiana Jones-style adventures.
Indiana Jones has seen several media types pick up his adventures, from a small TV spin-off series to official comics, and it even has inspired several video games based on his adventures, including LEGO games. Perhaps the biggest recent news relating to the series, though, is that a new movie is in development, and it still plans to use Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. The movie has officially wrapped filming, and is expected to be released in 2023.
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Aside from one movie, Indiana Jones is largely chronological, and the events of each movie don’t exactly affect the others, so it matters little either way. So, take a look through this list of the films in chronological order, so you can catch up on his adventures before Indiana Jones 5 hits theaters.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Paramount Pictures
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom may have been the second film to be released, but it technically takes place in 1935 before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones survives an assassination attempt and flees Shanghai with a young orphan named Short, along with a nightclub singer named Willie. They fall asleep on the cargo plane they escaped on, believing they were safe, but the pilots worked for the guy who tried to kill them, so they dump the fuel and escape the aircraft with parachutes, leaving it to crash. Jones and his companions barely manage to survive, and wind up in the village of Mayapore in northern India.
They run into more problems here, though, as they find the villagers’ sacred stone was stolen, along with their children, and implore Jones to help them. He agrees and travels to the palace they believe houses the stolen children, only to be welcomed with open arms. However, after his questioning isn’t received well, another assassin tries to kill him in his sleep. He discovers that there are hidden tunnels under the palace, and begins to explore them, not knowing he would soon be struggling to survive.
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark starts with Indiana Jones retrieving a gold idol from a trapped temple in 1936, with one of the most memorable and best action sequences of all time. He runs right from one life-threatening situation into another, as a rival archeologist, Belloq, is waiting for him and steals the idol. Upon his return to the US, two army intelligence agents are waiting for him, and in a debrief, he finds the Nazis are searching for the Ark of the Covenant. The agents recruit him to find it before the Nazis do.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
In the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, set in 1912 (before the film continues into 1938 for the rest), an old foe is given a backstory when a young Indiana Jones initially tries to recover a golden cross being stolen by a couple of grave robbers. He finally caught up to them and managed to successfully put the cross in a museum, and upon returning home, discovers that his dad (iconically played by a surprisingly hilarious Sean Connery) has disappeared while searching for the Holy Grail.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The Nazis aren’t the big enemy in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, released nearly two decades after the last Indiana Jones movie (and appropriately set in 1957, the exact same amount of time since The Last Crusade). Of course, instead of being another World War 2-era movie where Nazis are the enemies, the KGB are the problem, and these Soviet agents kidnap Indiana Jones and force him to help them a secret government bunker in Nevada and find a mummified alien. His attempts to stop them are unsuccessful, though he does barely manage to escape. Later, he is approached by a man named Mutt, who claims the KGB have kidnapped more people in search of the crystal skulls.
Jones joins Mutt as they travel to Peru, narrowly dodging KGB agents along the way. They discover that the KGB want to find more crystal skulls, believing that the skull belongs to an alien life form that will grant them psychic powers if they collect enough. With powers like that, the Soviets could telepathically control the world. Jones must stop the KGB with the help of old and new colleagues alike, all while dealing with this alien problem.
