Dr. Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., often called "Indy" for short, is the title character and protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials. The character first appeared in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, to be followed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom in 1984, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in 1989, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles from 1992 to 1996, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008, and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny in 2023. The character is also featured in novels, comics, video games, and other media. Jones is also the inspiration for several Disney theme park attractions, including Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril, the Indiana Jones Adventure, and Epic Stunt Spectacular! attractions.
Jones is most famously portrayed by Harrison Ford and has also been portrayed by River Phoenix (as the young Jones in The Last Crusade), and by Corey Carrier, Sean Patrick Flanery, and George Hall in the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. Doug Lee has supplied the voice of Jones for two LucasArts video games, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, David Esch supplied his voice for Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, and John Armstrong for Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings. Troy Baker provides the voice and motion capture for the character in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (2024).
Jones is characterized by his iconic accoutrements (bullwhip, fedora, satchel, and leather jacket), wry, witty and sarcastic sense of humor, deep knowledge of ancient civilizations and languages, and fear of snakes.
Since his first appearance in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones has become one of cinema's most famous characters. In 2003, the American Film Institute ranked him the second-greatest film hero of all time. He was also named the greatest movie character by Empire magazine. Entertainment Weekly ranked Jones 2nd on their list of The All-Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture. Premiere magazine placed Jones at number 7 on their list of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
Appearances Films and television installments in the chronological order The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–1996) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
A native of Princeton, New Jersey, Indiana Jones was introduced as a tenured professor of archaeology in the 1981 film Raiders of the Lost Ark, set in 1936. The Joneses are a family of paternal Scottish descent.Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Henry Jones, Sr. The character is an adventurer reminiscent of the 1930s film serial treasure hunters and pulp action heroes. His research is funded by Marshall College (a fictional school named after producer Frank Marshall), where he is a professor of archaeology. He studied under the Egyptologist and archaeologist Abner Ravenwood at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
In the first adventure, Raiders of the Lost Ark, set in 1936, Indiana Jones is pitted against Nazis commissioned by Hitler to recover artifacts of great power from the Old Testament (see Nazi archaeology). In consequence, Jones travels the world to prevent them from recovering the Ark of the Covenant (see also Biblical archaeology). He is aided by Marion Ravenwood and Sallah. The Nazis are led by Jones's archrival, a Nazi-sympathizing French archaeologist named René Belloq, and Arnold Toht, a sinister Gestapo agent.
The Temple of Doom (1984)
In the 1984 prequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, set in 1935, Jones travels to India and attempts to free enslaved children and the three Sankara stones from the bloodthirsty Thuggee cult. He is aided by Wan "Short Round" Li, a boy played by Ke Huy Quan, and is accompanied by singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). The prequel is not as centered on archaeology as Raiders of the Lost Ark and is considerably darker.
The Last Crusade (1989)
The third film, 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, set in 1938, returned to the formula of the original, reintroducing characters such as Sallah and Marcus Brody, a scene from Professor Jones' classroom (he now teaches at Barnett College), the globe-trotting element of multiple locations, and the return of the infamous Nazi mystics, this time trying to find the Holy Grail. The film's introduction, set in 1912, provided some backstory to the character, specifically the origin of his fear of snakes, his use of a bullwhip, the scar on his chin, and his hat; the film's epilogue also reveals that "Indiana" is not Jones' first name, but a nickname he took from the family dog. The film was a buddy movie of sorts, teaming Indiana with his father, Henry Jones, Sr., often to comical effect. Although Lucas intended to make five Indiana Jones films, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the last for over 18 years, as he could not think of a good plot element to drive the next installment.
The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–1996)
From 1992 to 1996, Lucas wrote and executive-produced The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, a television series aimed mainly at teenagers and children, which showed many of the important events and historical figures of the early 20th century through the prism of Jones' life.
The show initially featured the formula of an elderly (93 to 94 years of age) Indiana Jones played by George Hall introducing a story from his youth by way of an anecdote: the main part of the episode then featured an adventure with either a young adult Indy (16 to 21 years of age) played by Sean Patrick Flanery or a child Indy (8 to 10 years) played by Corey Carrier. One episode, "Young Indiana Jones and the Mystery of the Blues", is bookended by Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, rather than Hall. Later episodes and telemovies did not have this bookend format.
The bulk of the series centers around the young adult Indiana Jones and his activities during World War I as a 16- to 17-year-old soldier in the Belgian Army and then as an intelligence officer and spy seconded to French intelligence. The child Indiana episodes follow the boy's travels around the globe as he accompanies his parents on his father's worldwide lecture tour from 1908 to 1910.
The show provided some backstory for the films, as well as new information regarding the character. Indiana Jones was born July 1, 1899, and his middle name is Walton (Lucas's middle name). It is also mentioned that he had a sister called Suzie who died as an infant of fever, and that he eventually has a daughter and grandchildren who appear in some episode introductions and epilogues. His relationship with his father, first introduced in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, was further fleshed out with stories about his travels with his father as a young boy. Jones damages or loses his right eye sometime between the events of 1969 and the early 1990s, when the "Old Indy" segments take place, as the elderly Indiana Jones wears an eyepatch.
In 1999, Lucas removed the episode introductions and epilogues by George Hall for the VHS and DVD releases and re-edited the episodes into chronologically ordered feature-length stories. The series title was also changed to The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones.
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
The 2008 film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is the fourth film in the series. Set in 1957, nineteen years after the third film, it pits an older, wiser Indiana Jones against Soviet KGB agents bent on harnessing the power of an extraterrestrial device discovered in South America. Jones is aided in his adventure by his former lover, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and her son—a young greaser named Henry "Mutt" Williams (Shia LaBeouf), later revealed to be Jones' unknown child. There were rumors that Harrison Ford would not return for any future installments and LaBeouf would take over the franchise. This film also reveals that Jones was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, attaining the rank of colonel in the United States Army, and that in 1947 he was forced to investigate the Roswell UFO incident, and the investigation saw that he was involved in affairs related to Hangar 51. He is tasked with conducting covert operations with MI6 agent George McHale against the Soviet Union.
The Dial of Destiny (2023)
The 2023 film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is the fifth and final film in the series. Set in 1969—twelve years after the fourth film and during the height of the Space Race—Jones has moved to New York City, teaching at Hunter College with plans to retire, after his marriage with Marion collapsed following Mutt's death in the Vietnam War. Once his estranged goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) arrives asking for Archimedes' Dial, a relic Jones and her father Basil retrieved from the Nazis in 1944 during the Allied liberation of Europe in World War II, a Nazi-turned-NASA scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) starts pursuing Jones, wanting to exploit the Dial's unusual properties to change the outcome of World War II. As the film concludes, Indiana and Marion are reconciled.
Attractions
Indiana Jones is featured at several Walt Disney theme park attractions. The Indiana Jones Adventure attractions at Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea ("Temple of the Forbidden Eye" and "Temple of the Crystal Skull," respectively) place Indy at the forefront of two similar archaeological discoveries. These two temples each contain a wrathful deity who threatens the guests who ride through World War II troop transports. The attractions, some of the most expensive of their kind at the time, opened in 1995 and 2001, respectively, with sole design credit attributed to Walt Disney Imagineering. Ford was approached to reprise his role as Indiana Jones, but ultimately negotiations to secure Ford's participation broke down in December 1994, for unknown reasons. Instead, Dave Temple provided the voice of Jones. Ford's physical likeness, however, has nonetheless been used in subsequent Audio-animatronic figures for the attractions.Disneyland Resort: What’s Worth Seeing in 2010? The DIS Unplugged Disney Blog . Disunplugged.com. (February 8, 2010). Retrieved January 14, 2012.
Disneyland Paris also features an Indiana Jones-titled ride where people speed off through ancient ruins in a runaway mine wagon similar to that found in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril is a looping roller coaster engineered by Intamin, designed by Walt Disney Imagineering, and opened in 1993.
The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular! is a live show that has been presented in the Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park of the Walt Disney World Resort with few changes since the park's 1989 opening, as Disney-MGM Studios. The 25-minute show presents various stunts framed in the context of a feature film production and recruits members of the audience to participate in the show. Stunt artists in the show re-create and ultimately reveal some of the secrets of the stunts of the Raiders of the Lost Ark films, including the well-known "running-from-the-boulder" scene. Stunt performer Anislav Varbanov was fatally injured in August 2009, while rehearsing the show. Also formerly at Disney's Hollywood Studios, an audio-animatronic Indiana Jones appeared in another attraction; during The Great Movie Ride's Raiders of the Lost Ark segment.
Literature Comic books