Indiana Jones - the new hero from the creators of JAWS and STAR WARS.
The Return of the Great Adventure.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (also known as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) is a 1981 American action adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay written by Lawrence Kasdan, from a story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman. It was produced by Frank Marshall for Lucasfilm Ltd., with Lucas and Howard Kazanjian as executive producers. Starring Harrison Ford, it was the first installment in the Indiana Jones film franchise to be released, though it is the second in internal chronological order. It pits Indiana Jones (Ford) against a group of Nazis who are searching for the Ark of the Covenant, which Adolf Hitler believes will make his army invincible. The film co-stars Karen Allen as Indiana's former lover, Marion Ravenwood; Paul Freeman as Indiana's nemesis, French archaeologist René Belloq; John Rhys-Davies as Indiana's sidekick, Sallah; Ronald Lacey as Gestapo agent Arnold Toht; and Denholm Elliott as Indiana's colleague, Marcus Brody.
The film originated from Lucas' desire to create a modern version of the serials of the 1930s and 1940s. Production was based at Elstree Studios, England; but filming also took place in La Rochelle, France, Tunisia, Hawaii, and California from June to September 1980.
Released on June 12, 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark became the year's top-grossing film and remains one of the highest-grossing films ever made. It was nominated for eight Academy Awards in 1982, including Best Picture, and won four for Best Art Direction, Film Editing, Sound, and Visual Effects with a fifth Academy Award: a Special Achievement Award for Sound Effects Editing. The film's critical and popular success led to three additional films, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), with a fifth slated for 2019; the television series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992–1996), and 15 video games as of 2009. In 1999, the film was included in the U.S. Library of Congress' National Film Registry as having been deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Raiders of the Lost Ark is often ranked as one of the greatest films of all time, both in the action-adventure genre, and in general.[3] The film also ranks #2 on Empire's 2008 list of the 500 greatest movies of all time

The film was released on VHS, Betamax and VideoDisc in pan and scan only, and on laserdisc in both pan and scan and widescreen. For its 1999 VHS re-issue, the film was remastered in THX and made available in widescreen. The outer package was retitled Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark for consistency with the film's prequel and sequel. The subsequent DVD release in 2003 features this title as well. The title in the film itself remains unchanged, even in the restored DVD print. In the DVD, two subtle digital revisions were added. First, a connecting rod from the giant boulder to an offscreen guidance track in the opening scene was removed from behind the running Harrison Ford; second, a reflection in the glass partition separating Ford from the cobra in the Well of Souls was removed.[52] Shortly before the theatrical release of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Raiders (along with The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade) was re-released on DVD with additional extra features not included on the previous set on May 13, 2008. The film was released on Blu-ray Disc in September 2012.[53] Previously, only Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had been available on Blu-ray

Release Date: June 12, 1981

Domestic Total Gross: $212,222,025

Domestic Total Adj. Gross: $668,118,400