Film

Raiders of the Lost Ark

Indiana Jones was built as a throwback on purpose — Spielberg and Lucas raided the pulp serials and swashbucklers of their childhoods, then dressed it up with a real archaeologist's eye for ruins and relics. It moves like one long stunt reel: boulders, snakes, rope bridges, brawls on moving trucks, barely a breath between them. Funny, scary, romantic, endlessly confident. If you want to feel fourteen again, this is the machine for it.

TMDb rating7.9

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade1989

The best sequel in the series - Sean Connery as Indy's father turns the formula into a father-son comedy without losing a single stunt or one-liner. Nazi-punching at its most confident.

But It's still more Indy, so if you want something genuinely different this scratches the same itch rather than offering a new one.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade poster

The Mummy1999

Brendan Fraser doing his own pulpy-hero routine against reanimated Egyptian curses and treasure-hunters who might as well be Belloq's cousins. Cheerfully unburdened by taste, gorgeously silly, still holds up as popcorn.

But The CGI has aged badly and the humor runs broader and wiselcrackier than Raiders' mix of awe and dread.

The Mummy poster

Romancing the Stone1984

Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas bicker their way through the Colombian jungle chasing a treasure map, with the same wisecracking-couple-under-fire chemistry Raiders gave Indy and Marion.

But It's a rom-com wearing an adventure costume, so the stakes and stunts feel considerably smaller than Spielberg's set pieces.

Romancing the Stone poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Gunga Din1939

Spielberg has named this the direct model for Raiders' tone and structure - the banter, the set pieces, the cheerful colonial-adventure swagger, decades before Indy ever picked up a whip.

Three British soldier-adventurers brawl and joke their way through cults and derring-do in colonial India - this is the actual blueprint Spielberg and Lucas admitted to stealing from. Pure serial-movie joy, decades before Indy existed.

But The colonial politics are exactly as uncomfortable as you'd expect from 1939, and that hasn't aged gracefully.

Gunga Din poster
More like this (8)

National Treasure2004

Nicolas Cage steals the Declaration of Independence to save it, essentially reinventing Indy as a mild-mannered American history nerd. Puzzle-box plotting, family-friendly, endlessly rewatchable on a rainy Sunday.

But The history is nonsense dressed up as trivia, and the tone is considerably softer - there's no real menace anywhere.

National Treasure poster

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl2003

Swap the whip for a cutlass: same globe-trotting, cursed-treasure, one-liner-heavy spirit, anchored by Johnny Depp's performance, which was as strange and enjoyable a swing as this genre had seen in years.

But It leans harder into fantasy and CGI spectacle than archaeology-flavored realism, and it runs quite a bit longer.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl poster

The Rocketeer1991

A gorgeous, underseen throwback to 1930s pulp - jetpacks, Nazi spies, art deco Hollywood glamour. Everything Raiders loved about the era, filtered through a comic-book hero instead of an archaeologist.

But It underperformed for a reason: the pacing sags in the middle and the villain never quite matches Belloq's menace.

The Rocketeer poster

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle2017

Trades the map and whip for a video game controller but keeps the jungle-trap, ancient-curse, ensemble-banter formula humming, with Dwayne Johnson doing a surprisingly funny send-up of an action hero.

But It's broader comedy than adventure, and the CGI-heavy jungle never feels as tactile or dangerous as Indy's.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle poster

Uncharted2022

Tom Holland chasing pirate gold across the globe through traps, ships, and double-crosses lifted wholesale from the Indy playbook - a fun, disposable evening if you just want more of the same engine.

But It knows exactly what it's imitating and never finds its own identity - competent rather than inspired.

Uncharted poster

Tomb Raider2018

Alicia Vikander's Lara Croft is scrappier and more grounded than the games ever let her be, and the puzzle-tomb set pieces owe Indy an obvious, cheerful debt.

But The plot is thin scaffolding for the action, and it takes itself slightly too seriously for how silly the premise actually is.

Tomb Raider poster

Castle in the Sky1986

Same engine, opposite register: a MacGuffin with world-altering power, a race against ruthless pursuers, and a hero protecting an ancient secret - just told for children instead of grown-ups, and animated rather than shot.

Miyazaki's tale of a floating city, a girl with a magic amulet, and sky pirates chasing her has the exact DNA of Raiders - relic, chase, ancient power - reimagined as tender animated wonder.

But It's gentler and more openly sentimental than anything in Spielberg's film, with none of Raiders' menace or grown-up danger.

Castle in the Sky poster

Aguirre, the Wrath of God1972

It's the same premise turned inside out: men in the jungle chasing legendary treasure and ancient power, except Herzog plays it as genuine horror about greed and delusion rather than as a rollicking good time.

Klaus Kinski leads a doomed conquistador expedition into the Amazon chasing a golden city that may not exist - the jungle-quest structure of Raiders, stripped of fun and rebuilt as fever-dream tragedy.

But There's no charm, no rescue, no joke ever lands - this is arthouse cinema about obsession and colonial madness, not entertainment in the usual sense.

Aguirre, the Wrath of God poster

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Star Wars, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Return of the Jedi, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Romancing the Stone, The Mummy, The African Queen, Uncharted, The Thief of Bagdad, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, Porco Rosso, Warehouse 13, Around the World in 80 Days, Tomb Raider, The Rocketeer