With the upcoming release of Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, audiences will get their first look at the legendary explorer in over fifteen years. However, the return of Indiana Jones to the big screen is a fresh reminder of how few successful adventure films there are in cinema history.
Indiana Jones is one of the few times that this sort of continued success, even reverence, has been had for films that could primarily describe themselves as adventure-based. Despite many action films using the globetrotting style that these films helped popularize, there are few adventure films in this vein.
7 National Treasure
When Nicolas Cage went to star in a major adventure film in 2004, it seemed like it wouldn’t be that big a deal. However, National Treasure is a film that many now consider a spiritual successor to the style of older adventure films such as Indiana Jones.
Set modern day, National Treasure involves Ben Gates trying to find an ancient Templar treasure which involves a hidden cipher written on the back of the declaration of independence. Featuring improbable clues and wondrous, fantastical elements, this film and its sequel nevertheless felt like some of the more grounded adventure films and may be one of the best treasure-hunting movies out there.
6 The Road To El Dorado
It is strange to think of the Indiana Jones style being presented in animated form, although The Road To El Dorado is somewhat different from the Jones format. Nevertheless, going after a hidden treasure steeped in the history of an ancient civilization, while being chased by brutal conquerors set on world domination certainly does give this movie parallels to Indy’s adventures.
The Road To El Dorado features a pair of swindlers getting caught up in an adventure to find the lost city of gold, El Dorado. When they manage this, they have to pretend they are gods to the people there and end up defending them when conquistadors find the city as well. Featuring music, delightful animation, and an impressive voice cast, The Road To El Dorado is one of the best-animated adventures ever to exist.
5 The Mummy
The Mummy is the late 90s tribute to what Indiana Jones brought in bucket-loads to the big screen in the 80s. Featuring Brendan Fraser as rough-and-tough adventurer Rick O’Connell, The Mummy lends Egypt and Egyptian mythology to a large-scale American blockbuster similar to how Raiders of the Lost Ark found success nearly twenty years earlier.
Fighting against a resurrected ancient Egyptian who has the power to bring the plagues back to Egypt, O’Connell and his new friends have to fight against threats both physical and supernatural after racing to discover a treasure that they couldn’t fully understand. The Mummy is a brilliantly fun film that, at times blatantly, used the style of Indiana Jones to have fun and worthy success.
4 Romancing The Stone
When romance writer Joan Wilder receives a treasure map from her deceased brother-in-law, she goes on an adventure with brash adventurer Jack T Colton to try and find a treasure while also saving her sister from Colonel Zolo and his Colombian secret police forces.
Romancing the Stone is a perfect example of the kind of jungle adventure movie that learned from Indiana Jones and did different takes on the style. Romancing The Stone was a more comedic and romantic take on the adventure style, elevated by a great cast and in particular the wondrous chemistry of leads Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas. The film even got a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, which used other Indy tropes like the Egyptian setting.
3 Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle
One of the few blockbuster adventure films which have managed success recently, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is the hit sequel to Jumanji and features Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan, and Jack Black as video game avatars taken over by teenagers who must attempt to get back into their own world by winning the game.
This was another film that used the popular jungle adventure setting for this style of film, and it features a lot of comedy, romantic angles, and a series of insane but fun action sequences. Altogether, this was a heartfelt adventure that captured the love of audiences and critics, even though many were ready to scorn it upon release.
2 Sahara
A fun early 00s adventure film featuring Matthew McConaughey, Steve Zahn, and Penélope Cruz, Sahara dealt with the kind of treasure hunting that popularized films like Indiana Jones, while also dealing with more serious themes like that of an epidemic in Mali.
Sahara features a WHO doctor exploring a disease that has been breaking out in war-torn Mali, while a treasure hunter joins her in an attempt to find an American Civil War ship lost in the Sahara Desert. The ridiculous film gives a lot of the fun of films like Indiana Jones without quite as much logic or character design.
1 The Da Vinci Code
Based on an ingeniously written book, The Da Vinci Code and the entire Robert Langdon series depicts the sort of ancient relic hunting that Indiana Jones did in the best adventures, usually inspired by the same sort of religious backdrop that massively spurred on Indy’s adventures.
An epic adventure, The Da Vinci Code features a symbologist, Robert Langdon, who becomes embroiled in a murder in Paris but must prove his innocence by following religious clues that lead him to the Holy Grail. Even chasing the same object that Indiana Jones did in his third adventure, Langdon’s story is different but the ingenious writing and great performance by Tom Hanks in the leading role help make this a believable successor to the Indiana Jones style.