60 Fun Facts About Indiana Jones

Which creatures is Indiana Jones famously terrified of?

The phobia is written into the character alongside the bullwhip, fedora, satchel and leather jacket, and it pays off in the Well of Souls.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Nazis are hunting which biblical artifact?

The chest is said to make any army that carries it invincible, which is why Hitler wants it and why the US government sends Indy after it first.

In The Last Crusade, Indy and his father are racing the Nazis to find what?

Henry Jones Sr. spent his life on the search, and his diary of clues becomes the thing everyone is chasing before anyone reaches the cup itself.

Who plays Marion Ravenwood, first seen out-drinking a customer in a Nepal bar?

She returned to the role 27 years later for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and again for Dial of Destiny, the only love interest to appear in three films.

Indy's loyal Egyptian digger friend Sallah is played by which actor?

He came back for The Last Crusade and, at 78, for Dial of Destiny; in between he was Gimli in The Lord of the Rings.

Kate Capshaw plays which Shanghai nightclub singer in Temple of Doom?

She spends most of the film screaming at bugs and elephants, and married the director years later.

Which child actor made his film debut as Short Round, Indy's sidekick in Temple of Doom?

He drives the getaway car in Shanghai on a box of pedals; four decades later he won an Oscar for Everything Everywhere All at Once.

George Lucas named the character after what?

The Alaskan Malamute called Indiana lent its name to a hero originally called Indiana Smith; the surname changed because it sounded too much like Nevada Smith.

In which year is Raiders of the Lost Ark set?

That places it three years before the war, with the Nazis still digging in Egypt rather than fighting in it; the sequels jump backwards to 1935 and forwards to 1938.

The violence of Temple of Doom helped prompt the creation of which MPAA rating?

The new rating arrived two months after the film's release; Gremlins, released the same summer, took some of the blame too.

Who directed Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?

He came off Logan and Ford v Ferrari; Spielberg stayed on as an executive producer.

In which US city was Harrison Ford born?

He was born in 1942 at Swedish Covenant Hospital and later paid the bills as a self-taught carpenter before Star Wars made him famous.

In Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indy survives a nuclear test by climbing into what?

The lead-lined appliance in a mock suburban house gave the internet the phrase "nuking the fridge", a spiritual sequel to jumping the shark.

The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles originally aired on which US network?

It ran for four seasons and sent teenage Indy off to meet Picasso, T.E. Lawrence and Theodore Roosevelt on a budget of $1.7 million per episode.

In the 2024 video game Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, who provides Indy's voice and motion capture?

The same actor was Joel in The Last of Us; the game is mostly first-person, switching to third-person only for cutscenes.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is set in which year?

Nineteen years after The Last Crusade, which is why the villains are Soviets rather than Nazis and Indy is dodging an atomic bomb rather than a boulder.

Which actress plays Soviet agent Irina Spalko in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

She fences, reads minds and sports a severe black bob; her character wants to use the skulls to beam propaganda into American brains.

Who plays Mutt, the motorcycle-riding greaser revealed to be Indy's son?

His character's full name is Henry Jones III; the last film reveals he later died in Vietnam, which is why Indy and Marion are estranged in 1969.

In Dial of Destiny, Indy's goddaughter Helena Shaw is played by whom?

The Fleabag creator plays a fast-talking antiquities dealer whose father Basil, an Oxford archaeologist, was Indy's wartime ally.

Which actor plays the ex-Nazi scientist Jürgen Voller in Dial of Destiny?

Voller wants to use Archimedes' Dial to travel back and win the war for Germany; the actor had already been a Bond villain and Hannibal Lecter.

The Shanghai nightclub in the opening of Temple of Doom is named after which Star Wars character?

Club Obi-Wan opens with a Mandarin-language rendition of Cole Porter's "Anything Goes", a wink to the other franchise Lucas was running.

The child-enslaving, heart-ripping cult in Temple of Doom worships the goddess Kali and is called what?

The name comes from a real historical group of Indian robber-murderers, which is one reason the Indian government found the script offensive.

The temple at the climax of The Last Crusade is really Al-Khazneh, the Treasury, in which ancient city?

The Jordanian rock-cut facade only leads to a small chamber in real life; every interior shot with the knight and the trials was built on a soundstage.

Which country stood in for Egypt during the desert shoot of Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Temperatures topped 130 °F and most of the crew fell ill; Spielberg stayed healthy by eating only tinned food he had brought from England.

John Williams' Raiders score was nominated for an Oscar but lost to which film's score?

Vangelis' synthesiser theme beat the London Symphony Orchestra's brass; the Raiders March had been stitched together from two themes because Spielberg wanted both.

In The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, how old is the eyepatch-wearing 'Old Indy' who introduces episodes?

George Hall played the elderly narrator; the bookends were later cut when the series was re-edited into 22 TV films.

Which Young Indiana Jones episode has Harrison Ford's only appearance, a 1950-set bookend?

A 50-year-old Indy remembers learning jazz as a young man; it aired in March 1993 and is the only time Ford played the role on television.

Which studio developed Indiana Jones and the Great Circle?

The Swedish team behind the modern Wolfenstein games brought their Nazi-punching expertise to a story set in 1937, with the Vatican as a hub.

LucasArts' point-and-click classic Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was released in which year?

It let players choose a Team, Wits or Fists path through the story and became LucasArts' best-selling adventure game, passing a million copies.

The New York chase in Dial of Destiny takes place during a ticker-tape parade celebrating what?

Indy rides a police horse into the subway while the city celebrates the moon landing; the parade was staged in Scotland.

The 1912 prologue of The Last Crusade, with River Phoenix as a Boy Scout Indy, is set in which state?

In a few minutes it explains the whip, the chin scar, the fedora and the phobia, and hands him the Cross of Coronado he will spend 26 years chasing.

After India refused permission to shoot Temple of Doom, production moved to which country?

The crew set up around Kandy; the Pankot Palace exteriors were models and matte paintings, and the rope bridge was built over a real gorge.

The famous Raiders boulder was designed to be 65 ft wide but ended up at what width?

Made of fiberglass, plaster and wood, the finished prop still weighed 300 pounds; Ford ran from it himself, ten times, from two angles.

During the London shoot of Temple of Doom, Ford flew home for surgery after suffering what injury?

Stunt double Vic Armstrong shot the mine-cart and conveyor-belt fights while Ford recovered; look closely and the sequences barely show his face.

Indy's fictional employer, Marshall College, is named after which member of the film crew?

Frank Marshall produced every film in the series with Kathleen Kennedy; Barnett College in The Last Crusade got no such tribute.

Indy's fedora for the first three films was supplied by which Savile Row hatter?

The style became known as the Poet; the leather jacket, satchel and whip each have their own devoted collector forums.

How many rats had been bred for The Last Crusade's catacomb scenes within five months of the order?

Lucasfilm ordered 1,000 disease-free grey rats from the firm that had supplied the earlier films' creepy-crawlies, and the colony did the rest.

The Nazi tank in The Last Crusade was modelled on which First World War design?

The replica was 36 feet long and weighed 28 tons; the whole desert chase was shot in the Tabernas Desert of Almería, Spain.

The closing shot of The Last Crusade, four riders heading into the sunset, was filmed near which city?

It was the last image of Indy audiences would see for 19 years, and Spielberg intended it as the end of the series.

Which British city was dressed up as 1969 New York for Dial of Destiny?

The city centre's grid of stone office blocks has doubled for Manhattan repeatedly, including in World War Z and The Batman.

Dial of Destiny had its world premiere at which film festival?

It screened out of competition in May 2023, six weeks before its US release, and went on to lose money on a reported gross budget near $419 million.

Who wrote the screenplay for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

The Jurassic Park writer replaced a Darabont draft that Lucas rejected; the final story credit went to Lucas and Jeff Nathanson.

Which future Doctor Octopus debuted as Satipo, who says 'Throw me the idol, I'll throw you the whip'?

Real tarantulas were placed on his back for the scene; he was reportedly told they were harmless, which was mostly true.

The near-identical Tokyo DisneySea version of the Indiana Jones Adventure ride is subtitled what?

It opened in September 2001, six years after the Anaheim original, and swaps the deity Mara for a giant skull that spews smoke at riders.

The truck parked in the Disneyland ride's queue is a real Mercedes-Benz that appeared in which scene?

The 2.5-ton diesel is the same vehicle Indy is dragged behind in Raiders; guests can also study fake 'Marabic' inscriptions while they wait.

In Raiders, Toht's melting face was sculpted from layers of what over a heat-resistant skull?

Chris Walas built it in different colours so it would slump realistically under heat lamps; Belloq's head, by contrast, was a plaster skull packed with blood bags.

The Raiders of the Lost Ark score was among the first recorded at which studio after Anvil closed?

The sessions took place in February 1981 with the London Symphony Orchestra, the same players who had recorded Star Wars four years earlier.

Which Ghostbusters star cameos in Temple of Doom as the man who arranges Indy's flight out of Shanghai?

He plays Earl Weber and meets the trio at the airport; Temple of Doom and Ghostbusters opened within three weeks of each other in 1984.

Which Last Crusade character did Tom Stoppard create to tie the prologue together?

He is the antique-hunting rival who takes the Cross of Coronado from young Indy in 1912 and drowns with it off Portugal in 1938.

Spielberg and Lucas dropped a third-film script about a haunted castle and which figure?

The Chinese script by Chris Columbus was dropped over its depiction of African natives and its sheer implausibility, which for this series is saying something.

Sean Connery initially turned down playing Indy's father partly because he was only how many years older than Ford?

He also disliked franchise films after Bond, but relented and improvised the line "She talks in her sleep", which stayed in because it made everyone laugh.

In The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Indy defies his father by joining which country's army in World War I?

Under a false name he fights at Verdun and in Africa, then drifts into intelligence work, all before he has finished his degree.

In the CD-ROM 'talkie' version of Fate of Atlantis, who voiced Indy because Ford was unavailable?

Sidekick Sophia Hapgood, a former archaeologist turned psychic, got the better lines anyway; the game runs on the SCUMM engine that powered Monkey Island.

Where did Indiana Jones rank among heroes in the AFI's 2003 list of 100 greatest heroes and villains?

Only Atticus Finch beat him; James Bond, one of Lucas's admitted inspirations for the character, came in third.

How many Emmy Awards did The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles win from its 18 nominations?

Most were for technical categories like cinematography and editing, a payoff for shooting on location in dozens of countries at $1.7 million an episode.

In Dial of Destiny, the villains' time machine misfires and lands them in which ancient battle?

Indy realises continental drift has shifted the coordinates, so the group arrives in 214 BC rather than 1939.

Which Spanish star plays Renaldo, the professional diver who helps Indy reach the Antikythera wreck?

He described the character as a rogue who is a good guy who dies for Indiana Jones.

What job does Sallah hold in 1969 when Indy seeks him out in New York?

John Rhys-Davies returned to the role for the first time since The Last Crusade in 1989.

Which real Cold War program inspired the writers to bring Nazis back as villains in Dial of Destiny?

Mangold and the Butterworths wrote the villain Voller as a former Nazi scientist working for the Americans.

The Morocco scenes were originally due to be shot in which country before COVID-19 levels rose?

Jaisalmer and Jaipur in Rajasthan were the planned locations, and Kathmandu was briefly considered before Fez and Oujda won out.