Widely regarded as one of the greatest films ever made, one 1981 fast-paced, adventurous, and visually striking action film established the blueprint for the modern blockbuster.

In the early 1970s, George Lucas was influenced by the adventure serials of the 1930s and ’40s, and imagined a modern homage to those episodic cliffhangers – now featuring an adventurous archaeologist in the lead role.

He developed the concept further with screenwriter Philip Kaufman, who proposed the Ark of the Covenant – a legendary biblical artefact – as the central object of the story.

Lucas paused work on the project to concentrate on his groundbreaking 1977 classic Star Wars.

After Star Wars became a worldwide phenomenon, he returned to the previous concept and pitched it to Steven Spielberg, who was interested in making a film in the style of a James Bond adventure.

Then, in 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark introduced the world to Indiana Jones – the fedora-wearing archaeologist who became one of cinema’s most remarkable characters – with the help of screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan and actor Harrison Ford, who had previously played Han Solo in Star Wars.

Set in 1936, Raiders of the Lost Ark follows Dr. Indiana Jones, who is recruited by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before it falls into the hands of the Nazis.

The film commences in the jungles of South America, where Jones retrieves a golden idol from a heavily booby-trapped temple, only to be double-crossed by a guide and outsmarted by his adversary, French archaeologist René Belloq.

Back on American soil, he is briefed by Army intelligence officials who inform him that the Nazis are hunting for the lost city of Tanis in Egypt, believed to house the Ark – a sacred chest purported to contain the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments.

To locate the Ark, Jones must find an artefact known as the headpiece to the Staff of Ra, which is in the possession of Marion Ravenwood, the daughter of his former mentor – and his past lover.

The middle of the film is brimming with action scenes, including fights, chases, shootouts, and a memorable sequence involving a pit of snakes in the Well of Souls, the resting place of the Ark.

Raiders of the Lost Ark was an immediate commercial and critical triumph upon its release in June 1981, and became the highest-grossing film of the year, raking in more than $300 million globally.

It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won five, including Best Art Direction, Best Film Editing, Best Sound, Best Visual Effects, and a Special Achievement Award for sound effects editing.

It also marked audiences’ introduction to the franchise that would subsequently follow, which encompasses The Temple of Doom (1984), The Last Crusade (1989), The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and The Dial of Destiny (2023), alongside books, video games, and merchandise.

The original Indiana Jones film has been consistently ranked amongst the greatest pictures of all time by critics, filmmakers, and audiences alike.

In 1999, the picture was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”, and its influence can be observed in action-adventure films for decades afterwards, while it helped shape the format for numerous Hollywood blockbusters that followed.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is now available to stream on Netflix.