Despite directing myriad classics over 50 years of filmmaking, Steven Spielberg’s name will always be synonymous with the Indiana Jones series. Likewise, star Harrison Ford is Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. before he’s Jack Ryan, Rick Deckard, or even Han Solo. Some of this is due to the longevity of the series: Spielberg directed four Indy films, more than he’s ever played in the same franchise sandbox. Ford, meanwhile, has performed the character five times, including Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
The staying power of Indy really comes down to its spirit. Inspired by the adventure serials of the early 20th century, producer George Lucas set out to create a good, old-fashioned swashbuckler with 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark. It proved so popular upon release — it was the highest-grossing film of that year and played in some cinemas for more than 12 months — that after finishing the original Star Wars trilogy, Lucas found other MacGuffins for Indy to hunt. And in 2023, he’s still hunting.
In honor of James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny whipping into theaters, here is every Indiana Jones movie ranked from worst to best.
5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens with a shot of a terrible CG groundhog, and somehow it’s still all downhill from there. Recently, people have been reappraising the film, saying we were all too hard on it upon release in 2008. But if anything, the criticisms in the zeitgeist were too limited — strictly dragging things that happened (Indy in the fridge, Shia LaBeouf swinging with monkeys) instead of how problematic those things are in a dramatic sense.
The opening where Indy survives a nuclear blast looks silly, yes. But what’s so damning about the sequence is how it bulletproofs Indy for the entirety of a film that is ostensibly trying to reckon with his fallibility — he’s finally growing wrinkles and must navigate the world without the guidance of his father or his confidant Marcus. But he’s also more invincible than ever before? It doesn’t work.
Indy’s son, Mutt, isn’t nearly the franchise albatross that people treat him as. LaBeouf’s performance is fine, and at least his character drives the story. Indy himself is along for the ride, as he’s been before, but the film’s second half fails to make our hero the driving force. Dr. Jones is essentially herded to the climax by the villains, and audiences can sense his passivity even if they can’t put their finger on it. Plus, this may be Cate Blanchett’s only bad performance ever, or maybe she’s just riffing on the script’s determination to make her such an ineffectual antagonist. Also, hey, Karen Allen’s back as Marion — and she does nothing except lightly assist during action scenes.
Perhaps most frustrating is that only the opening Area 51 setpiece and the short bike chase at the college bring any of the expected Spielberg thrills, since everything else is green-screened to death or computer-animated to the point of terminal monotony.
4. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is aggressively fine. The script is better than Crystal Skull at allowing Indy to emotionally anchor the narrative. Likewise, the villains are more effective and way more fun. Mileage may vary on Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character, but it’s impactful how she and Indy are both self-destructive because they’re gutted by loss — and refreshing that they don’t have to talk that out onscreen to make sure viewers understand. The biggest question here is whether journeyman James Mangold has what it takes to fill in for Spielberg behind the camera, and the answer is a resounding “kind of.”
Mangold isn’t exactly trying to make a full-tilt adventure with the same energy that the Blockbuster Bard himself gave these movies. Sure, the Ford V Ferrari director uses a few of Spielberg’s techniques, trotting out the silhouettes and having characters pop into the foreground whenever possible. And John Williams’ new score supplies a terrific dose of familiarity. But the film still feels like a different beast than the previous four, which is appropriate considering how bitter and regretful Indy has become.
The biggest drawback here is Mangold’s inconsistent handling of digital effects, which absolutely sink the first act into the uncanny valley in both a World War II preamble featuring a de-aged Ford and an early parade chase where the actor’s face is clearly pasted onto a stunt rider for certain shots of Indy on horseback. However, once the narrative leaves New York, Mangold sticks to action that Ford can handle — and better camouflages stuntmen when they’re necessary. Call us old grumps, but the technology is just not there yet to replace actors’ faces when they’re in rapid motion, and if we ever return to this film, you can bet we’ll dip in for the second two acts only. It’s not that the back half of the movie doesn’t feature copious CG; it’s just that the effects are deployed around our main cast members instead of all over their faces.
Ultimately, Dial of Destiny is an uneven victory lap for the iconic character, but we don’t hate the journey Ford takes as an actor. People may walk out of this movie saying it’s inessential and just plain ugly sometimes, but no one will say Ford himself isn’t up to snuff. As far as last looks go, Indy could do much worse.
3. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
Temple of Doom is an easy film to like but a hard one to love. Although the second half works wonders as a summer thrill ride, the script here is much worse than the other two films in the original trilogy. Raiders of the Lost Ark writer Lawrence Kasdan turned down the offer to return, and he’s greatly missed in an adventure that seems to grind to a halt during its interpersonal conflicts — whereas Raiders made them part of the engine.
The MacGuffin also isn’t as succinct here. There are multiple magic stones, but also missing children that Indy acquires. Yes, Kate Capshaw’s nightclub singer Willie is intended to be annoying and the polar opposite of Marion, but we’re not sure Spielberg actually wanted us to fast-forward through the scenes where she’s complaining (which we do). Although Ke Huy Quan is a national treasure, he doesn’t fare much better as Short Round, who is basically a mouthpiece for saying stuff the audience can see with their own eyes. His presence in this much darker adventure is also a bit strange tonally, as is Short Round’s life-or-death friendship with an adult archeologist.
Finally, Indy doesn’t really have an arc in this film, which undoes most of the narrative’s dramatic potential. There’s a part where he’s briefly brainwashed, but — say it with us now — mind control is not actual conflict. Perhaps Indy’s character is static because he has nowhere to go: The film is presented as a prequel to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, to explain the lack of Nazis and Marion. But that film was about Indy becoming a believer in the supernatural, which is now completely undone since he apparently had an adventure in India beforehand that showed him the existence of dark magic.
Still, just watch Harrison Ford in this movie. He’s one of the most archetypal square-jawed heroes of all time while somehow feeling completely relatable in his exhausted reactions to everything. And Spielberg shoves so much grimy fun into two hours that it’s impossible not to recommend this as a standout action-adventure even with its flaws.
2. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
The finale of the original Indiana Jones trilogy is lovely in nearly countless ways. It tells something of an origin story for Indy in a stellar opening sequence starring River Phoenix, it refreshingly treats Indy’s love interest as a femme fatale, the climax hosts one of the best tombs in the series, and Sean Connery joins the cast as bookish medievalist Henry Jones Sr., who thankfully is played more for pathos than for laughs.
Among those assets, it’s really the presence of Connery that makes this chapter unique. It would have been easy to make Indy’s father just an older version of our favorite hero, but to make him a man who considers himself above all this riffraff, a true student of history who only fights with his brain, instantly casts Indy in the light of immaturity. Somehow, the guy we’ve been rooting for all this time as action-hero extraordinaire now seems crude and unresolved. Indy as a fully grown man still seeking his father’s approval unlocks so much of his character: He hunts treasure, beds women, and basks in the adulation of his students because he never felt loved by the one guy whose opinion really mattered.
On the other side of that, Indy doesn’t understand his father fully until late in the film, in a beautiful sequence where Connery uses his umbrella to scare some birds into the engine of a Nazi fighter jet. Spielberg lingers on Indy’s face as he watches Henry Sr. in awe, and even the most emotionally unavailable viewers finally get it.
1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Raiders of the Lost Ark is iconic from moment one. You have the hat, the whip, the rolling ball; all juxtaposed with Dr. Jones returning to the real world to give archeology lectures to captivated students who hang on his every word. On its face, it’s already a winning formula. Add in Spielberg’s increasingly limitless camera, Douglas Slocombe’s religious use of contrast in the cinematography, and John Williams’ rousing score, and it’s no wonder that critics even on opening weekend were sure they’d just seen a blockbuster masterpiece.
Aside from the talent behind the camera, Harrison Ford’s inaugural performance as Indy is one for the ages. Taking his roguish attitude from Star Wars and baking in a world-weariness (“It’s not the years; it’s the mileage”) that feeds his eventual arc of spiritual revelation, he’s a guy audiences can root for, idolize, but also recognize as kind of a jerk who needs to adjust his worldview. Karen Alley as Marion is every bit his equal, and their love story feels integral to the plot rather than tacked on. Indy doesn’t commit romantically because he thinks he knows the world and how everything works out in the end. He’s a man without any faith, but by the end he’s utterly humbled — by the powers that come out of the Ark and by the woman he desperately tells to shut her eyes, for fear of losing her forever.
Perhaps most notable among Raiders’ achievements is its perfect pacing. It starts at a run but then slows down for careful exposition and character-building. By the halfway point, it begins racing through some of the best setpieces of all time, including the famous truck chase, the airfield fight, and a true come-to-God finale where every character proves fallible against the will of history. They don’t make them like this anymore. Heck, they didn’t make them like this before. Raiders of the Lost Ark stands tall as a foremost achievement in cinema, and now that it’s old enough to be considered history itself, the movie plays better than ever.
