Steven Spielberg and George Lucas set out to give American cinema its own James Bond with the Indiana Jones franchise, and with a collection of pulpy, action-packed, globetrotting cinematic adventures, they’ve done just that. (By design, there isn’t a single entry on this list from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, because that movie’s overuse of CGI effects meant that its action scenes didn’t hold a candle to that of the original trilogy.)
Hopefully, for the upcoming fifth movie, Spielberg and co. will return to the practical methods they used to make the older films look so visceral and thrilling. Without further ado, here are the 10 Greatest Action Sequences In The Indiana Jones Franchise.
The Shanghai nightclub fight (Temple of Doom)
Indy seems to be having a perfectly civil negotiation with some gangsters at the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom — which is technically a prequel, set a couple of years before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark — but then, the gangsters shoot Indy’s friend and informant, killing him.
On top of that, they reveal that Indy has just ingested poison, and they toss the antidote across the room. As Indy succumbs to his poisoning, he desperately chases the antidote around the nightclub, while fleeing civilians kick it around and the gangsters gleefully shoot at him.
Escaping the temple with the golden idol (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
The opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark introduced the world to the character of Indiana Jones perfectly. Deep in an exotic jungle, he and his companion Satipo find an ancient temple. On the way in, they’re faced with all kinds of creepy crawlies and booby traps. They reach the golden idol they’ve come to collect, and Indy carefully replaces it with a bag of sand of about the same weight.
For a second, everything seems fine. But then the temple starts to crumble and Indy frantically flees, pursued by flying arrows and a rolling boulder.
The zeppelin escape (The Last Crusade)
As they flee the Nazis in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indy and his father Henry, Sr. escape from a zeppelin in a biplane, pursued by a German officer in another biplane. As Indy fires back at their opponent, Henry, Sr. shoots out the tail of the plane, sending them crashing to the ground. He claims their enemy shot out the tail, but it was accidental friendly fire.
So, the plane goes down, but they’re still being chased by the bad guys. Henry, Sr. manages to take down a plane with an umbrella as he spooks some birds and they fly into the engine.
Jumping from a crashing plane (Temple of Doom)
Indy, Willie, and Short Round think they’re out of the woods when they escape the gangsters in Shanghai on a plane, but the plane turns out to be owned by the gangsters. While they’re in the air in the middle of the night, the pilots jump out with parachutes on, leaving the plane careening towards the side of a mountain.
Panicked, Willie wakes up Indy to think of a way to save them. Since there are no parachutes left, Indy grabs an inflatable raft. Willie pleads, “We’re not sinking; we’re crashing!” But the plan works out as the raft inflates on the way down and carries the trio to the bottom of the mountain and into a river.
Shooting the swordsman (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
This sequence is anticlimactic in the best way possible. A swordsman confronts Indy, showing off his acrobatic moves, ready for combat, and then Indy just whips out his revolver and shoots the swordsman dead. It is so quintessentially Indy.
Apparently, Indy was supposed to have a longer fight with the swordsman, but since Harrison Ford (and most of the cast and crew) had gotten really sick while shooting in Tunisia, he didn’t feel like doing the fight choreography and suggested that Indy just shoot the guy. Steven Spielberg loved the idea, and it became one of the character’s defining moments.
The adventures of young Indy (The Last Crusade)
The opening sequence of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade takes us back to Indy’s days as a Boy Scout, as he breaks off from his troop to investigate a couple of shady guys stealing a precious artifact to sell on the black market. Indy insists that it belongs in a museum, and nabs it from them.
They chase him across the desert and onto a passing circus train, where Indy’s penchant for the bullwhip is introduced as he squares off against a lion. The younger Indy is played brilliantly by River Phoenix, while the scene has interesting parallels with the following one, which brings back adult Indy, fighting for the same artifact.
The mine cart chase (Temple of Doom)
The climactic mine cart chase from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was actually conceived for the first movie, but the writers couldn’t find space for it in the story, so it was left until the second one. It fits the plot of Temple of Doom a lot better, anyway.
Steven Spielberg has a lot of fun with the mine cart concept, having them jump over missing chunks of the rails and leaning over as they zoom around sharp bends. Temple of Doom’s actual climax arrives a few minutes later when Indy slashes down a bridge that he’s cornered on, but the mine cart chase is arguably even more exciting.
Fighting a large Nazi mechanic under a plane (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
There are a few different types of fight sequences in Indiana Jones movies. There’s the kind where Indy singlehandedly fights off a room full of henchmen, which can be fun. But arguably more fun is the kind where Indy takes on an opponent who’s much bigger and stronger than him, and gets his ass kicked. That’s the case with this scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The final shot of the mechanic being turned into tomato soup by the spinning propeller has to be one of the most gruesome moments to be included in a PG-rated action movie — rivaled only by the melting faces that can also be found in Raiders.
The tank chase (The Last Crusade)
On the way to the temple where the Holy Grail is housed, Henry, Sr. and Marcus are captured. So, Indy and Sallah, on horseback, board the tank to save them. Indy is really put through the ringer in this sequence. The main villain, sinister S.S. colonel Ernst Vogel, beats him to within an inch of his life.
Then, Indy’s hung from a cannon that is scraping along a rocky wall, threatening to smear him across the cliffside. And then, he goes over the edge of a cliff with the tank. Thankfully, he manages to grab onto something before it goes and he survives the fall.
The truck chase (Raiders of the Lost Ark)
Back when Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and their team were making Raiders of the Lost Ark, actors couldn’t just be substituted for computer-generated clones, so dangerous scenes had to actually be performed by stuntpeople. For the truck chase scene in Raiders, Harrison Ford’s long-time stunt double Vic Armstrong had to actually hang off a truck from a bullwhip and get dragged along a desert road.
One of the wheels went over him at one stage, but they got the shots they needed. Fighting Nazis is exciting enough, but doing it on a moving vehicle pushes it up to another level of thrilling.
