Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Raiders of the Lost Ark follows archaeologist Indiana Jones in 1936 as he races the Nazis to find the lost Ark of the Covenant. The film opens in Peru, where Indy barely escapes a booby trapped temple with a golden idol, only to lose it to his rival, the French archaeologist René Belloq.

Back home, Indy teaches at a college, and US government agents visit him with news that the Nazis are digging in Egypt for the Ark, which legend says gives great power to whoever holds it. To find the right spot, Indy needs a headpiece once held by his old mentor. It now belongs to his former love, Marion Ravenwood, who lives in Nepal. He sets out to find her and get ahead of the Nazis.

In story order, this adventure comes after Temple of Doom, which is set in 1935 even though it was released three years later. The Indiana Jones movies in order page explains both ways to watch.

The full plot runs from a Peruvian temple to a government warehouse in Washington, and it is built as a chain of hand offs. After Belloq takes the idol, army intelligence asks Indy to find the Ark before the Nazis do, since Hitler's agents are searching for it in Egypt.

Indy travels to Nepal and finds Marion, who owns the headpiece needed to locate the Ark's resting place. A Nazi agent, Toht, tracks them down, and a fight leaves Marion's bar in flames. The two then travel to Cairo, where they join Indy's friend Sallah. Marion is apparently killed in a plot by the Nazis, and the Nazis dig in the wrong spot while Indy uses the staff headpiece to find the true location.

Indy finds the Well of Souls, a chamber of snakes, and takes the Ark, but Belloq and the Nazis seal him inside with Marion. The pair escape, and Indy chases the Ark as it is carried away in a truck convoy and then on a ship. He gets onto a German submarine and travels with it to a remote island.

There, Belloq and the Nazis plan a ceremony to open the Ark, with Indy and Marion tied up as witnesses. Indy tells Marion to close her eyes as the Ark is opened. Spirits pour out and kill Belloq and the Nazis. Back in Washington, the government crates the Ark and stores it in a huge warehouse, where it is lost among countless other boxes.

Counted as a mechanic would count it, the last act is a relay in four legs: the truck convoy, the ship, the submarine and the island. Each leg hands the Ark to a new vehicle and keeps Indy one step behind it.

Raiders of the Lost Ark opened in US theaters on June 12, 1981, according to Lucasfilm. The UK release followed on July 30, 1981, and Australia on August 14, 1981, as reported by The Numbers and TMDB.

Before the opening, the film had a test screening at San Francisco's Northpoint Theatre on May 9, 1981, which Lucasfilm says settled a debate over the Cairo swordsman scene. Marketing stayed quiet until about a week before release, when TV ads and sneak previews began, an unusually late start for a major release.

The film is rated PG in the US, the UK and Australia, and it runs 115 minutes. As the first of the five main films, it started the run of Indiana Jones movies that reaches Dial of Destiny in 2023.

The ending of Raiders of the Lost Ark has two beats: the Ark destroys Belloq and the Nazis on the island, and then the government buries it in a warehouse. On the island, Indy and Marion keep their eyes shut while the Ark's spirits destroy Belloq and the Nazi soldiers. Indy and Marion survive and return the Ark to the United States.

Why do their eyes matter? Belloq and the Nazis stage a ceremony to treat the Ark as a prize, and Indy has no way to stop it, so his only move is to tell Marion to look away. In my opinion, that makes the hero the one person who survives by showing respect rather than force, which is a neat reversal for a character who spent the opening stealing an idol.

The final shot is the warehouse. Government officials thank Indy, then hide the Ark among countless other crates in a massive secret warehouse. It could be argued that this is the cleverest joke in the film, because the men who wanted the Ark most cannot be trusted with it either. It also hints at official secrecy and leaves room for more adventures.

That dry final image, a crate vanishing into a stack of identical crates, is the part I would point a new viewer to. Perhaps that restraint is why the film holds up next to its sequels, which you can compare in Indiana Jones movies ranked.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was filmed in France, Tunisia, Hawaii and England, with extra work in California. Principal photography ran from June to September 1980.

• La Rochelle, France: the U-boat pens used for the submarine base scenes.
• Tunisia: stood in for Egypt, including the desert dig site near Tozeur and Kairouan for Cairo.
• Kauai, Hawaii: the opening jungle and temple scenes.
• Elstree Studios, England: studio sets and interiors.
• Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, England: the school interior, shot at the Royal Masonic School for Girls.
• California, USA: the University of the Pacific for the school exterior.
• San Francisco City Hall, California: the final scene, shot in post production.

The Peruvian temple of the opening is therefore a Hawaiian jungle, and Cairo is a Tunisian city.

Raiders of the Lost Ark has a handful of well documented production stories, from a cheese casserole to a borrowed miniature.

• Ben Burtt made the snake sounds in the Well of Souls by running his fingers through a cheese casserole made by his wife, layering the recordings.
• The Cairo swordsman scene was shot in a longer and a shorter version. Lucas preferred the long fight, Spielberg the short one where Indy shoots the swordsman, and the Northpoint Theatre test screening on May 9, 1981 settled it, according to producer Howard Kazanjian.
• The German submarine base was shot with a miniature borrowed from Spielberg's film 1941, floated in San Francisco Bay near one of the Marin Islands. The island was later replaced with a matte painting.
• Marketing stayed quiet until about a week before the June 12, 1981 release, when TV ads and sneak previews began.
• Principal photography ran from June to September 1980 on a reported $20 million budget, according to The Numbers. Box Office Mojo lists the budget as $18 million.