Plot and characters

The film takes place in 1936. Taking its cue from classic action serials, which began each installment at the climax of the previous episode, Raiders of the Lost Ark starts with archaeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in South America closing in on the treasured artifact that he has been seeking. He is accompanied by two guides, Satipo (Alfred Molina) and Barranca (Vic Tablian). Treacherous Barranca attempts to shoot Jones, but Jones’s trusty bullwhip disarms him. Jones and Satipo enter an ancient cavernous temple, narrowly avoiding various deadly booby traps until they reach a small golden idol. Jones retrieves the relic from a platform and replaces it with a bag of sand of similar weight, but the idol’s removal triggers more booby traps, and the temple starts to disintegrate. While escaping, Jones surpasses various obstacles, including a gigantic rolling boulder, to emerge from the temple with the coveted artifact. Outside the temple, however, Jones encounters rival archaeologist René Belloq (Paul Freeman), who takes the idol and orders a group of local warriors to attack Jones. Jones escapes to an awaiting airplane, as the film’s theme music resoundingly plays him off, signifying the end of his South American adventure.

Jones is next seen teaching a college archaeology class back in the United States and wearing a considerably more sedate outfit than his adventurer’s gear and bullwhip. After the class, Jones’s friend Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), a museum curator, tells Jones that U.S. Army intelligence agents are waiting to speak to him. The government wants to recruit Jones to find and obtain the biblical Ark of the Covenant before it can be claimed by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, whose excavation for the Ark is underway in Egypt. Brody warns that if the Nazis obtain the Ark, its power will make Hitler invincible. To thwart Hitler, Jones travels to Nepal, where he finds his former lover, the feisty Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), who runs a rustic bar. Marion possesses the brass medallion headpiece for the staff of the Egyptian god Ra, which can identify where the Ark is hidden. After a barroom battle in which Jones and Marion fight off Nazis led by Gestapo Maj. Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey), Jones and Marion travel to Egypt to uncover the location of the Well of Souls, which houses the Ark.

In Cairo they meet Jones’s friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), a local excavator. They encounter more Nazis and various assassins, who chase them through the city and kidnap Marion. Jones discovers that Belloq is working for the Nazis and is also warned against disturbing the Ark by a local imam who deciphers the medallion from the staff of Ra. After uncovering the location of the Well of Souls in Tanis, Egypt, Indy and Sallah retrieve the Ark but are intercepted by Toht and the Nazis, who capture the precious artifact and seal Marion and Jones inside a snake-infested vault. After numerous hair-raising escapes and confrontations, Jones regains the Ark and boards a boat to England with Marion and the Ark.

More plot twists occur, resulting in the Nazis reseizing the Ark. Belloq wants to ritually open it before it is presented to Hitler, and the Nazis land on an island to perform the ceremony, along with a captured Marion, with Jones tagging along in disguise. Soon Jones is captured too, and he and Marion are tied up during the ritual. When Belloq opens the Ark, the Nazis are disappointed to find only sand inside, but, as sparks begin to erupt from the Ark, Jones tells Marion that they must close their eyes. Beautiful but terrifying spirits are released from the Ark, killing the Nazis, melting Toht’s face, and blowing up Belloq’s head. Jones and Marion are the only survivors, having respected the sacred power that was unleashed. The film ends with Jones and Brody, both in Washington, D.C., describing the magnitude of the Ark to government officials and asking about its fate. Jones and Brody are told that “top men” are investigating the matter. The last shot of the film shows the invaluable Ark being placed in a nondescript crate and stored away among thousands of other boxes in a massive warehouse.

Development

George Lucas began developing the idea for a film about a character called Indiana Smith in the 1970s. Nervous about the premiere of his new film, Star Wars (1977), Lucas went on vacation to Hawaii and met with his friend Steven Spielberg, who had just finished making Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). Lucas explained to Spielberg his vision of a movie that would reimagine the matinee serials and B-pictures Lucas loved as a boy. These movies, many of them produced by Republic Pictures, featured exotic locations and frequent action sequences. Spielberg, who had been interested in making a James Bond-style action film, became excited about Lucas’s idea. Eventually, Spielberg, Lucas, and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan met to discuss the style and plot of the film, and they renamed the main character Indiana Jones.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was released in the summer of 1981 and became the highest-grossing film of the year. Film critic Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it “one of the most deliriously funny, ingenious and stylish American adventure movies ever made.” Film buffs recognized the movie’s visual nods to several classic films, including Citizen Kane (1941), Casablanca (1942), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), Yojimbo (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and several of Zorro flicks. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including best picture and best director. It won Oscars for art and set direction, sound, film editing, and visual effects, plus a special achievement Oscar for sound effects editing. In 1999 it was added to the National Film Registry, a film preservation program established by the U.S. Library of Congress that selects films of cultural, historical, and aesthetic significance.

The film’s success led to four sequels; a television series; several novels, comic books, and video games; and a live show at Disney World. The next film in the series, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), featured an all-new supporting cast that included Kate Capshaw and Ke Huy Quan. However, in subsequent sequels, Allen, Elliott, and Rhys-Davies variously reprised their original roles. The film inspired numerous other swashbuckling action-adventure films, such as The Goonies (1985), The Mummy (1999), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003). In 2000 Raiders of the Lost Ark was rereleased under the title Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark to conform with the naming of its sequels, although the original title remains in the film’s opening credits.