By “Archaeology is the search for fact, not truth,” says Indiana Jones to Dr. Elsa Schneider and Marcus Brody. He is in Venice, Italy looking for clues to his father’s whereabouts.
“If it’s truth you’re interested in, Dr. Tyree’s Philosophy class is right down the hall. So forget any ideas you’ve got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and “X” never, ever marks the spot.”
Oh, but it does…
X does mark the spot in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Here we check out 10 great treasure hunt movies featuring iconic characters like the Goonies, Jack Sparrow, and of course, Indiana Jones, lots of adventure and heroics, and an equal amount of laughs and screams on our way to finding the loot.
Trespass
Dir. Walter Hill (1992)
If Die Hard was a treasure hunt movie it would be Walter Hill’s Trespass, a thrilling crime drama that sees a pair of firefighters searching an abandoned building for hidden gold. Bill Paxton and William Sadler are the ones searching for the loot but their problems aren’t just map-related. Ice-T and his armed gang want to get their hands on it too.
Trespass offers a unique alternative to the classic adventure we often see in the genre, with the balance between survival and riches as fine as the decaying wooden door of an disused warehouse.
National Treasure
Dir. Jon Turteltaub (2004)
Nicolas Cage stars as part of a terrific ensemble cast which includes Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean and Christopher Plummer.
Learning of the “national treasure”, loot hidden by the founding fathers and Freemasons during the American civil war, Cage’s Benjamin Franklin Gates, a historian by day, wannabe adventurer by night, sets out to find untold riches.
Hurtling along at breakneck speed, this hugely entertaining film neatly weaves American history into a contemporary setting and features a great sense of humour and some excellent set pieces.
The Mummy
Dir. Stephen Sommers (1999)
This fun adventure-horror from director Stephen Sommers might ostensibly draw its inspiration from the Boris Karloff-starring 1932 film but is really a very good attempt at making a decent Indiana Jones movie, The Mummy nonetheless distinguishes itself courtesy of a charismatic Brendan Fraser as treasure hunter Rick O’Connell.
He finds himself leading an expedition to find the tomb of the infamous Imhotep, an ancient Egyptian high priest who was mummified alive after embarking on an affair with the mistress of Pharaoh Seti I.
An energetic cast (including the excellent Rachel Weisz) make this a lovable potpourri of comedy, action and horror as director Sommers brings us B-movie styling with A-movie finesse.
Pirates Of The Caribbean
Dir. Gore Verbinski (2003)
Johnny Depp has given us some startling performances over the years including many characters who leave an indelible mark. But I’m not sure there is anyone as oddly lovable and consistently amusing as Jack Sparrow.
Based on the popular Walt Disney theme park ride, Gore Verbinski’s comic swashbuckler sees an inspired Depp bring us the perennially inebriated pirate Jack Sparrow as the villains chase the treasure and the good guys chase the girl.
Three Kings
Dir. David O’Russell (1999)
Three Kings is set at the tail-end of the first Gulf War as three American soldiers form a plot to steal gold bullion from Saddam Hussein.
Faced with the Iraqi uprising as well as Saddam loyalists, George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube take on the desert dust to track down the gold.
This satirical war film has moments of levity drawn from the director’s dark sense of humour alongside tragedy and high stakes military drama.
Romancing The Stone
Dir. Robert Zemeckis (1984)
Steven Spielberg protégé Robert Zemeckis gives us a hearty dose of Indiana Jones in the guise of Michael Douglas’ Jack T. Colton who comes to the aid of damsel in distress, Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner), a stranded romance novelist searching for her kidnapped sister.
The kidnappers want a map leading to hidden treasure that Wilder has in her possession. In return for bringing the map to Columbia, where the treasure is buried somewhere, they will release her sister from captivity.
But Wilder’s saviour, the swashbuckling Colton, has other ideas. If they can find the treasure themselves, they’ll have a much better bargaining tool. So the pair head off in search of the precious emerald, pursued by a bumbling small time crook (Danny DeVito) as well as a sadistic General and his gang of well-armed military police.
Time Bandits
Dir. Terry Gillian (1981)
This offbeat adventure from the minds of Monty Python alumni Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin mixes two wonderfully entertaining concepts – the treasure hunt and time travel.
An eleven-year-old child (Craig Warnock) joins a group of dwarfs as they use a stolen map to steal riches from a variety of historical figures as they travel through time.
This dark, comic tale is made all the more enthralling thanks to the wonderful imagination of its creators.
The Goonies
Dir. Richard Donner (1985)
A bunch of kids discover a treasure map pertaining to the buried loot of pirate One-Eyed Willy. Facing the loss of their homes due to foreclosure, the group set off in search of the riches, all the while chased by a trio of crooks eager to get the treasure for themselves.
Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
Dir. Steven Spielberg (1989)
Five years after the original Indiana Jones adventure, Steven Spielberg released Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The film was significant because it accepted the flaws present in the first sequel and ensured the same mistakes weren’t made again.
Spielberg acknowledged that he went too dark with Temple of Doom (a film that, while suffering enough flaws to see it omitted from this list, still features a number of the director’s finest moments including the brilliant underground rail car escape).
Last Crusade, in many ways, goes back to what worked in Raiders, its chief villains once again being Nazis. But it also reveals a great subplot involving Indy’s relationship with his father (Sean Connery), the pair reconnecting to track down the Holy Grail.
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Dir. Steven Spielberg (1984)
The daddy of all treasure hunt movies, the quintessential adventure which all others look to with envy, Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark is a barnstorming epic featuring one of cinematic’s most charismatic heroes.
Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones, an intrepid archaeologist who treks across the world in order to find the Ark of the Covenant (which holds, supposedly, the tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed).
He is pursued on his journey by a vicious Nazi task force led by Paul Freeman’s rival archaeologist Belloq and containing creepy Gestapo agent Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey), who are determined to find the ark in order, Hitler believes, to make his army invincible.
No pressure then Dr Jones!
If you enjoyed our look at the best treasure hunts in movies, you may also like:
The 10 Greatest Crowd-Pleasing Moments In Indiana Jones
The greatest moments from the Indiana Jones movies: counting down the best action sequences and crowd-pleasing scenes from Indy’s adventures.
Terrific list Dan. This might be one of my favourite things you have done here. Love the inclusion of Raiders and Crusade. Goonies of course is well deserving as well.
I’m not sure I would include anything different. Great job.
Ah… thanks Dan. Much appreciated. It’s a time for feelgood films and most of these have that feelgood factor.