Cody's Top 30 Favorite Movies of All-Time: #3 - Raiders of the Lost Ark

The ultimate classic adventure film, brought to us by two of the bestest-best pals in Hollywood history.

Following the success of Star Wars, George Lucas sought to adapt another thing from his childhood that he loved so much, 1930s action-adventure serials about explorers running into peril in search of buried treasure. In the iconic role of Indiana Jones is Harrison Ford, as we join this archaeologist-explorer on a hunt for the Ark of the Covenant, the sacred chest the Hebrews used to carry around the Ten Commandments that Moses brought down from his meeting with God. Indiana Jones is tasked by two CIA agents to travel to Cairo to intercept and get to the Ark before the Nazis do, even taking along his childhood sweetheart, Marion Ravenwood to Egypt. You see, Marion's father Abner is who the Nazis were after first, as he had the headpiece of the "Staff of Ra". As Indy explains in the movie, you put the staff of Ra into a slot in the map room, and if the sun shown into the headpiece's crystal at the exact spot of the exact time of day, a beam of sunlight would point to the floor map of Tannes and give the location of the Well of the Souls, "where the Ark of the Covenant was kept".

The movie is iconic for many reasons. The action scenes, the fight scenes, the story, the characters and the music. It's when the duo of Steven Spielberg (director) and George Lucas (story) shines the best is with an Indiana Jones movie. Sure, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a wishy-washy mess but the other three are stellar at least. There's many scenes that people remember, most notably are the ones that the Disney live show, Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular portrayed, which are the three most memorable ones: Indiana's infiltration to the temple of the Golden Idol, Indiana's street fight in Cairo and Indiana's airstrip fight with the large German mechanic. All three scenes in this movie are awesome and perfect examples of action-adventure. Raiders of the Lost Ark is so well made, even the ending could feel like a copout had it not been done the way it was. I won't reveal the ending, but let's just say that the Nazis incur God's wrath while Indiana and Marion stand by and watch. I watched a clip on the special effects of those shots and I was flabbergasted at how they did it.

If you claim to be a film buff and you haven't seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, then you really should either sit down and watch the Blu-ray or stream it HD on a large flatscreen (you know, for full effect) or turn in your film buff card and start pursuing other self-titles. I highly, urgently, imperatively recommend you watch it post haste. Spielberg, Lucas, Harrison Ford, action-adventure, and religious mishandling. What more could you ask for? Now enjoy one of the most iconic scenes in motion picture history.