Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D.,[1] is a fictional professor of archaeology, adventurer, and the main protagonist of the 1981 adventure film Raiders of the Lost Ark, its prequel (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom), and sequels (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Jones is notable for his trademark bullwhip, fedora, leather jacket, and fear of snakes.

The character is most famously played by Harrison Ford; however, he has also been portrayed by River Phoenix (as the young Indy in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), and in the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles by Corey Carrier, Sean Patrick Flanery, and George Hall. Doug Lee has supplied Indy's voice to two LucasArts video games, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine, while David Esch supplied Indy's voice to Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb.

In 1936, in the Peruvian jungle, archaeologist/treasure hunter Indiana Jones braves several booby traps to retrieve a golden idol from an ancient temple. After escaping, he finds rival archaeologist Rene Belloq waiting outside with a group of Hovitos, the local natives. Surrounded and outnumbered, Jones is forced to give up the artifact to Belloq. Jones escapes from Belloq and the Hovitos after a jungle pursuit and flying away on a waiting seaplane.
Indiana Jones attempts to take the idol in the opening of the film.
Indiana Jones attempts to take the idol in the opening of the film.

At the American college where he teaches archaeology, Jones meets with two Army intelligence agents. They explain that the Nazis, in their quest to gain occult power, are searching for Abner Ravenwood, Jones's former mentor. Ravenwood is the foremost expert on the ancient Egyptian city of Tanis, which has been rediscovered by the Nazis and is believed to be the location of the Ark of the Covenant, a chest the Israelites built to hold the fragments of the Ten Commandments. Jones surmises that the Nazis seek Ravenwood because he possesses the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, a key artifact essential in pinpointing the Ark's resting place. His colleague Marcus Brody explains that, according to legend, the power of the Ark can make any army invincible.

Jones flies to Nepal, only to find that Ravenwood has died; his daughter Marion, Jones's embittered former lover, has the headpiece, which she wears as a medallion. A gunfight between Jones and a sadistic Nazi agent named Toht, breaks out and Marion's tavern is burned down. Toht's hand is seared with the face of the medallion and Jones ends up in possession of both the headpiece and Marion, who decides to travel with him. The two fly to Cairo and meet up with Sallah, a skilled Egyptian digger, who says that he knows where the Nazis, with the assistance of Belloq - and a replica of the headpiece - are digging for the Ark. In a Cairo bazaar Nazi operatives kidnap Marion and fake her death in front of Jones. That evening, Sallah and Jones decipher the carvings on the headpiece to determine the Staff's length - which are written on both its sides. Belloq made his single-sided replica using Toht's scarred hand. They realize that the Nazi's Staff is too long, causing them to dig in the wrong place.
Indiana and Sallah lift up the Ark of the Covenant
Indiana and Sallah lift up the Ark of the Covenant

Infiltrating the dig, Indy sneaks into the map room, which contains a scale model of the city of Tanis. According to legend, the headpiece would reveal the exact location of the Well of Souls, the chamber containing the Ark, by focusing daylight onto the city mock-up at a certain time of day. Although Sallah is nearly exposed and captured in the attempt, Indy successfully acquires the location. He and Sallah gather a small crew and begin to dig at the correct location. After several hours, they break through the roof of the buried Well of Souls. Jones is lowered to the floor of the temple and finds it infested with multitudes of poisonous Egyptian asps, which he is deathly afraid of. After he and Sallah hoist the Ark out of the temple, Belloq and the Nazis appear and take possession of the Ark. Marion is tossed into the Well with Jones, and they are sealed in. The duo manage to escape, emerging aboveground in time to find a Luftwaffe flying wing being prepared to transport the Ark to Berlin. During a brief fight for control of the plane, it is destroyed. The Ark is put on a truck to Cairo, where it will be shipped to Berlin. Stealing a horse, Jones pursues the convoy escorting the truck, seizes control of the vehicle and, after an extended pursuit, escapes with the Ark. That evening, Jones and Marion leave Sallah to escort the Ark to England onboard the tramp steamer Bantu Wind.

The next morning, a Nazi U-boat commanded by Belloq and Nazi officer Dietrich stops the ship. Marion and the Ark are removed, while Jones covertly boards the U-boat. He follows Belloq and the Ark to an isolated island, where they plan to test the power of the Ark before presenting it to the Führer. Threatening to destroy the Ark with a rocket launcher, Jones demands that the Nazis free Marion. Belloq calls his bluff, claiming that Indy, as an archaeologist, wants to see it opened as badly as Belloq; Jones is forced to surrender. Marion and Jones are tied up while Belloq and the Nazis perform a ceremonial opening of the Ark. Spirits emerge from within; Jones, aware of the supernatural danger of looking at the opened Ark, warns Marion to close her eyes. The group of Nazis, who do not look away, are gruesomely killed by the Ark's supernatural powers, and the Ark closes itself once more with a crack of thunder. Back in Washington, D.C., the two Army intelligence men tell a suspicious Jones that "top men" are carefully studying the Ark. In reality, the artifact is sealed in a wooden crate and stored in a giant government warehouse, filled with countless similar crates.

Set in 1935, a year before Raiders of the Lost Ark, the film opens with Indiana Jones in a Shanghai nightclub named Club Obi-Wan, attempting to trade the remains of Nurhaci for a large diamond with a gangster named Lao Che. When the deal goes bad and Indy's friend Wu Han is killed in the ensuing violence, Indy and the club's singer, Wilhelmina "Willie" Scott, escape the pursuing criminals in a car driven by a young boy named Short Round, an ally of Indy. They board a cargo plane, not knowing that it is owned by Lao Che. As Indy, Willie, and Short Round nap during the flight, the pilots dump the fuel and parachute out of the plane. Indy and the others use an inflatable emergency raft to descend safely from the plane.

After a dangerous ride down the Himalayan mountains and a raging river, the trio eventually come to a desolate village in India. The poor villagers there enlist their help in retrieving a sacred stone, the Sankara Stone or Siva lingam stone, as well as the community's kidnapped children, from the evil forces of nearby Pankot Palace.

Initially, Pankot Palace seems normal enough, despite the grotesque food it offers its guests; the royal tenants are insulted by Indiana's questions about the villagers' claims. Later that night, however, Indy is attacked in his room by a would-be assassin, which leads him to seek and find a secret door. He, Willie, and Short Round make their way through the secret passage and discover a vast underground temple beneath the palace, where the village rock and two more are held by the Thuggee. An evil cult who worship the goddess Kali with human sacrifice, the Thuggee have enslaved the village's children to dig for two remaining Sankara stones that are lost within the mines of the palace. Their villainous leader Mola Ram hopes to use the power of the five united Sankara stones to rule the world. During the revelation, the protagonists witness a gruesome sacrifice ritual where Mola Ram bare-handedly digs a man's heart out of his chest; the man survives, his heart beating in Mola Ram's hand, until he is lowered slowly into a lava pit.

Indy, Willie, and Short Round are captured by the Thuggee and separated. Indy sides with the Thuggee after being forced to drink the "blood of Kali Ma", a mind-control potion which puts the drinker into the "black sleep of Kali". Willie is kept as a human sacrifice, and Short Round is put in the mines alongside the village children as a slave laborer. However, Short Round breaks his bonds and escapes back into the temple, where Willie is tied up and being lowered into a lava pit. He helps Indy return to his normal self by using a torch to shock him from his trance. Although Mola Ram escapes through a trap door, Indy and Short Round manage to save Willie, take the three Sankara Stones, and free the village children. In the fight to escape the palace, the three jump into a mine car and are closely pursued by two Thuggee-filled cars. Indy knocks the first car off the tracks with a board, but the second catches up to them. In the struggle, Short Round nearly falls into lava and a Thuggee jumps onto the back of their car. Willie delivers an unexpected punch that knocks the Thuggee back onto the track, whereupon the other car crashes into his body and derails.

Meanwhile, Mola Ram and others break the supports of a giant water reservoir, pouring the contents down the tunnels in an attempt to drown the three heroes. After Indy stops their mine car, they avoid the rushing water by running outside, only to find themselves stuck at the top of a sheer canyon. They try to cross a rope bridge but are trapped with the Thuggee on both sides. Taking a desperate gamble, Indy utters a warning in Chinese to his friends to brace themselves. He then uses a sword to cut the bridge in half, sending many of the Thuggee plummeting into the crocodile-infested river below.

Mola Ram and a few of his minions manage to cling to the heroes' side of the bridge. He fights with Indy for the stones; Indy invokes the stones' magic and causes Mola Ram and all but one of the stones to fall into the river, where the nefarious priest is ripped apart and devoured by crocodiles. At that moment, British troops appear to subdue the remaining Thuggee. The heroes triumphantly return to the village with their sacred stone and their children.

In 1912, boy scout Indiana Jones steals the Cross of Coronado, an ornamental cross belonging to Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, from grave robbers, believing it should be in a museum instead of a private collection, in the process using a whip, scarring his chin, and gaining his fear of snakes. Although he rescues the cross, the robbers tell the police that Indiana was the thief, and he is forced to return it, while his oblivious father, Henry Jones, is working on his research. One of the robbers, dressed very similarly to the future Indiana, gives him a fedora with some encouraging words. In 1938, an adult Indiana is on the robbers' ship, the Coronado, off the Portuguese coast, finally retrieving the Cross and donating it to Marcus Brody's museum.

Indiana meets the wealthy Walter Donovan, who informs him that his father vanished while searching for a clue to the location of the Holy Grail, using an incomplete stone tablet as his guide. Indy receives a special package that turns out to be his father's Grail diary in which he recorded all his findings and clues towards the Holy Grail. Understanding that his father would not have sent the Grail Diary - his father's life's work - to him unless he was in trouble, Indiana and Marcus travel to Venice. There they meet the beauitful and mysterious Dr. Elsa Schneider who had been working with Indiana's father. They retrace his father's footsteps, starting at the library where he was last seen. Using the diary, Indiana finds an X (inlaid in the floor) literally marking the spot, then smashes through the floor to ancient catacombs underneath, filled with oil several feet deep and infested with rats. Inside is the tomb of Sir Richard, a knight of the First Crusade, whose shield holds a complete version of the information on the tablet. The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secretive and fanatical religious cult that protects the Holy Grail, set fire to the oil in the catacombs to kill Indiana and Elsa. Indiana overturns Richard's sarcophagus so that he and Elsa can take refuge inside from the flames, and emerge from a sewer grate in Venice outside the library. Indiana and Elsa commandeer a motorboat to escape, managing to fight off all but the cult's leader, Kazim, during the ensuing chase. Jones convinces Kazim that he is looking for his father, not the Grail, and Kazim reveals that his father is being held in Castle Brunwald near the Austrian-German border.

Indiana finds his father, but they are betrayed by Schneider and Donovan, who worked with the Nazis to stage Henry's kidnapping, so that Indiana would solve the mystery of the Grail for them. Elsa ties Indy and his father up from head to toe and then kisses Indy. Indiana and Henry escape together and travel to Berlin to retrieve Henry's diary, which he reveals also contains the clues to evade three booby traps. They arrive at a pro-Nazi book-burning rally, where a disguised Indiana corners Elsa and convinces her to return the diary to him, in the process bumping into Adolf Hitler, who assumes the diary is an autograph book and signs the first page. Indiana and Henry travel on an LZ-138 Zeppelin, which begins to turn around, letting Indiana realize the Nazis know they are on board. They escape the ship by taking an attached fighter plane, evading Nazi dogfighters. Henry accidentally shoots out the tailfin, and they crash land. They steal a car, causing one Nazi plane to be destroyed when it follows them through a tunnel. On a beach, Henry uses his umbrella to stir up a flock of seagulls. The seagulls cause numerous bird strikes on the second plane, crashing it. The Joneses meet up with Sallah and confront the Nazis, who have captured Brody. The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword also appears, attacking the Nazi caravan, but are defeated. Henry attempts to rescue Brody from the tank wherein he is being held, but is himself captured. Indiana jumps onto the tank and rescues the captives before it drives off a cliff, killing Donovan's aide, Colonel Vogel.

The Joneses, Sallah, and Brody reach the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, in Hatay near %u0130skenderun, the site of the temple housing the Grail. The Nazis capture them in the temple, and Donovan shoots Henry, forcing Indiana to retrieve the Grail, so as to heal his father's fatal wounds. Guided by the diary, Indiana circumvents the deadly booby traps, reaching a room where a knight of the First Crusade, kept alive by the power of the Grail, has hidden it among many false cups, while Donovan and Elsa follow. The knight informs them that, if they wish for the Grail, they must choose wisely for it, for while drinking from the true Grail will bring them everlasting life, a false Grail will take it from them. Schneider identifies a golden, bejeweled cup as the Grail, and Donovan impatiently drinks from it. Realizing the Grail is false, Donovan dies, aging rapidly into dust.

Indiana picks out the true Grail, a plain cup with a gold interior, worthy of a humble carpenter (Jesus), and drinks from it without harm. Indiana fills the Grail with water and uses it to heal Henry. Despite a warning from the knight not to let the Grail go past the Great Seal in accordance with the Law of God, Elsa tries to leave with the Grail and the interior starts to collapse. She loses her balance at the edge of a newly-formed crevasse; despite Indiana's attempts to lift her, she greedily reaches for the Grail and falls into the abyss. Indiana loses his footing and finds himself in the same situation, with his father keeping him from following the same fate as Elsa. He also tries to get the Grail, until Henry says simply, "Indiana...Indiana...let it go." Realizing that this is the first time his father has properly referred to him by name (rather than condescendingly calling him Junior), and that his father did not want to risk losing him even to retrieve the Grail, Indiana reluctantly obeys. The Grail and the old knight are left in the ruins as the Joneses, Brody, and Sallah escape the crumbling temple. Afterward, Henry reveals that Indiana was the family dog's name, much to Sallah's amusement, and that Indiana's real name is Henry Jones, Jr. All four then ride off into the sunset.