Ripped straight from the pulpy adventure serials of the 1930s that George Lucas grew up with, Indiana Jones is one of the greatest heroes to ever grace the silver screen. When Lucas brought the concept of this character and his world to Steven Spielberg, the director saw an opportunity to give America its own alternative to the James Bond franchise.
Indy has become just as iconic as Bond, if not more. Harrison Ford was the perfect actor to bring this character to life, with both a cool attitude and a real humanity. Here are Indiana Jones’ 10 Most Iconic Moments.
Infiltrating and then escaping the temple containing the Golden Idol
In the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, we’re introduced to Indiana Jones as his guide through the Peruvian jungle turns on him, and he takes them down with his bullwhip. Every moment in this opening set piece has become iconic, from Indy entering the ancient temple containing the Golden Idol to replacing the artifact with a bag of sand to outrunning booby traps on his way out of the temple.
But easily the most memorable part of the sequence is the giant boulder that rolls after Indy as he runs for his life, only to have the Golden Idol stolen by Belloq a few seconds later.
Chasing the antidote across a nightclub floor in Shanghai
Next to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Temple of Doom is arguably the most controversial film in the franchise. It’s essentially imperialist propaganda that peddles a handful of racial stereotypes. However, its opening scene — in which Indy negotiates with a couple of gangsters in a Shanghai nightclub and gets unwittingly poisoned — is spectacular.
The gangsters laugh at Indy as he succumbs to the effects of the poison, and toss the antidote across the dance-floor. As the gunfire causes everybody in the club to flee, Indy traverses the rabid crowd in search of the antidote, as it gets continually kicked around.
“No ticket!”
In The Last Crusade, Indy and his father hitch a ride on a zeppelin to get out of the lion’s den. Indy disguises himself as a ticket collector. He comes across a Nazi officer who recognizes him, so he quickly throws him out the window into a pile of luggage. The other passengers on the zeppelin are horrified by Indy’s actions.
As he turns around to face them, forced to come up with an explanation for why he just tossed a man overboard that actually makes sense in the context of his disguise, he says, “No ticket!” This prompts the other passengers to frantically search for their tickets, fearing a similar fate.
Fighting the burly Luftwaffe mechanic
There’s a tradition in the Indiana Jones movies that Indy is thrust into fist fights with men who are much larger and stronger than him. He gets his ass handed to him, which provides some slapstick-y comic relief, before he thinks of a solution to thwart his combatant. This tradition started in Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indy found himself going toe to toe with a burly Luftwaffe mechanic underneath a plane.
Indy is hopelessly outmatched in the fight, but when he sees a spinning propeller coming up behind the mechanic, he curls up into a ball. The mechanic isn’t so lucky, and gets turned into ketchup by the propeller.
“Don’t call me Junior!”
Sean Connery as Indy’s father, Henry Jones, Sr., was one of the greatest additions to this franchise’s growing roster of characters. Obviously, Connery’s an incredible actor in his own right. He nails the role, but what really makes The Last Crusade special is the on-screen chemistry that Connery shares with Harrison Ford.
The two are actually believable as an estranged father and son — constantly bickering and failing to get along, yet undeniably endeared to one another. It’s through Henry that we learn Indy’s real name — Henry Jones, Jr. — but this bothers Indy, who hates being called “Junior” by his dad.
Chopping down the rope bridge
At the end of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Indy, Willie, and Short Round flee from the Thuggee cult and make their way across a rickety rope bridge. However, Thuggee cultists appear on either side of the bridge, trapping them. They begin to close in, and Indy has to act fast.
So, he takes his sword and starts hacking at the ropes, bringing the bridge down. Most of the bad guys fall into the water below, which is infested with bloodthirsty crocodiles waiting to tear them to pieces. The others hang from the bridge as Indy picks them off, one by one.
The origin story
In most franchises, an opening scene like the one in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade wouldn’t go over very well. It’s a flashback to Indy’s days as a Boy Scout, as he intercepts a group of mercenaries who are stealing a historical artifact to sell on the black market. He snatches the artifact from them and they chase him through the desert, eventually ending up on a circus train, where he first gains his signature weapon: the bullwhip.
As shown by Solo’s failure, it’s not so easy to get audiences to accept the younger version of an iconic character, played by a new actor — especially if that original actor is Harrison Ford — but River Phoenix plays this scene brilliantly as young Indy.
“Snakes…Why did it have to be snakes?”
Every character worth their salt has an “Achilles’ heel,” a fatal flaw, that one weakness. For Superman, this is Kryptonite, the only material he’s vulnerable to under the Earth’s yellow sun. For Spider-Man, it’s symbiotes, which can corrupt the usually innocent and pure soul of Peter Parker.
And for Indiana Jones, it’s his fear of snakes. At the Cairo dig site, where he’s lowered into the Well of Souls to find the next clue to the location of the Ark of the Covenant, he finds that it’s filled with hissing snakes and says, “Snakes…Why did it have to be snakes?”
Choosing the true Holy Grail
The MacGuffin in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is, historically, one of the most sought-after relics of all time: the Holy Grail. With the Nazis on his tail, Indy manages to find the temple where the Grail is stored, but it’s not as simple as just going in and taking it. There are a few challenges to get through on the way to the Grail itself, and when you actually get there, the ghost of a knight is protecting it.
This knight doesn’t just hand you the Grail; you have to pick it out from an array of cups. Walter Donovan chooses poorly. He takes the fanciest-looking, most jewel-encrusted chalice he can find, and it kills him. But Indy chooses the right one.
Shooting the swordsman in Cairo
This is, without a doubt, the quintessential Indiana Jones moment. A swordsman shows off his impressive skills, ready to fight Indy, and Indy just unholsters his revolver and shoots him dead.
This scene was actually Harrison Ford’s idea. Ford, along with the rest of the cast and crew (except for Steven Spielberg, who brought his own food), had gotten really sick from food poisoning while shooting Raiders in Tunisia. There was a lengthy, choreographed fight between Indy and the swordsman, but Ford didn’t feel up to it and suggested just shooting the guy. Spielberg loved the idea, and it became the character’s finest hour.
