Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 American action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg. The screenplay was written by Jeffrey Boam, and the story was based on ideas by George Lucas and Menno Meyjes. It is the third movie in the Indiana Jones film series and follows the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Harrison Ford plays the main character, Indiana Jones, and Sean Connery appears as his father. Other actors in the film include Alison Doody, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies. The story takes place in 1938 and follows Indiana Jones as he searches for his father, a scholar who studies the Holy Grail. His father has been kidnapped by the Nazis during a journey to find the Holy Grail.

After Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) received some negative reviews, Steven Spielberg decided to make a more fun movie for the next film. He also included elements from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Between 1984 and 1989, Spielberg and producer George Lucas reviewed many scripts before choosing one written by Jeffrey Boam. The film was shot in several countries, including Spain, Italy, West Germany, Jordan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was released in the United States on May 24, 1989, by Paramount Pictures. The movie was well received by critics and made a lot of money, earning $474.2 million worldwide. It was the most successful film of 1989. The film won an Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing and was nominated for Best Original Score and Best Sound at the 62nd Academy Awards. Although Spielberg and Lucas planned for The Last Crusade to be the final movie in the series, a sequel called Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released in 2008. A fifth and final film, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, came out in June 2023.

Plot

In 1912, Boy Scout Indiana Jones lives with his father, Henry Jones Sr., in Moab, Utah. One day, while exploring caves with his scout troop, Indy takes a crucifix owned by Francisco Vázquez de Coronado from a group of graverobbers led by a man named Garth. After a short chase on horseback and a train from a circus, Indy returns home. Garth and his men, with help from the local sheriff, take the crucifix from Indy. Garth then gives Indy a fedora as a sign of respect before leaving.

In 1938, Indy retrieves the crucifix from the employer of the graverobbers on the Portuguese coast. After returning to his university in the United States, Indy learns his father has disappeared while searching for the Holy Grail, and his childhood home was broken into. Walter Donovan, who helped fund his father’s work, asks Indy to find Henry and the Grail. Indy receives a package with Henry’s diary, which contains research about the Grail. He travels to Venice with Marcus Brody to meet Henry’s associate, Dr. Elsa Schneider. Beneath a library where Henry was last seen, Indy and Elsa find a catacomb with an inscribed shield that shows the path to the Grail begins in Alexandretta. They are attacked by the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a group that protects the Grail. After saving the group’s leader, Kazim, Indy learns Henry is being held at Brunwald Castle in Austria. Indy gives Marcus a map from the diary and sends him to Alexandretta to meet their friend Sallah. Later, Indy and Elsa discover their rooms were broken into and share information about the diary before sleeping together.

In Austria, Indy and Elsa enter Brunwald Castle, which is controlled by Nazis led by Standartenführer Ernst Vogel. Indy finds his father and tries to escape, but surrenders when Vogel threatens Elsa. Elsa reveals she and Donovan are working with the Nazis and takes the diary. In Alexandretta, Marcus is also captured by the Nazis. Elsa returns to Germany, while Indy and Henry escape the castle and travel to Berlin. There, Indy retrieves the diary during a book burning event hosted by Adolf Hitler. He recovers it from Elsa and flees with Henry on a Zeppelin. The Zeppelin changes course back to Germany, forcing Indy and Henry to take control of a spare plane to avoid being chased by Nazi planes.

In Hatay, Sallah tells Indy and Henry the Nazis have also arrived using the map. While following the trail, the Nazis are attacked by Kazim and the Brotherhood but manage to kill them. Henry tries to rescue Marcus but is captured. Indy attacks the Nazi convoy and, with help from Henry and Marcus, destroys it, sending Vogel and his tank over a cliff. Indy, Henry, Marcus, and Sallah reach a temple containing the Grail. They watch the Nazis struggle with the temple’s traps before being captured. Donovan forces Indy to find a safe way to save them by seriously injuring Henry, claiming a drink from the Grail could heal him. Using the diary, Indy solves the temple’s traps and finds a room with many cups and an ancient knight, who explains only one cup is the true Grail. Donovan and Elsa enter the room, and Elsa gives Donovan the wrong cup, killing him after he drinks. Indy finds the true Grail and saves Henry’s life after the knight warns the Grail cannot cross the great seal. Elsa ignores the warning, causing a disaster in the temple. She falls to her death while trying to take the Grail, and Indy nearly dies before Henry convinces him to let it go. The Grail falls into an abyss as Indy and his companions escape, riding off into the sunset.

Cast

• Harrison Ford played Henry "Indiana" Jones, Jr., an archaeologist, professor, and adventurer who tries to rescue his father and find the Holy Grail. Ford said he liked the idea of introducing Indiana's father because it let him show a different side of Indiana's personality. River Phoenix played a younger version of Indiana Jones. Phoenix had previously acted in The Mosquito Coast (1986), where he played the son of Ford's character. Ford recommended Phoenix for the role, saying he looked most like Ford at that age.

• Sean Connery played Henry Jones, Sr., Indiana's father, a professor of medieval literature who cared more about finding the Grail than raising his son. Spielberg had Connery in mind when he suggested adding Indiana's father, though he did not tell Lucas first. Lucas wrote the role as "a crazy, eccentric" professor resembling Laurence Olivier, with a relationship more like a teacher and student than a father and son. Spielberg admired Connery's work as James Bond and believed no one else could play the role as well. Connery had avoided major franchise films since his Bond days, finding them dull and wanting to avoid media attention, but he eventually agreed to the role. Connery, who studied history, helped reshape the character, and the script was changed to fit his ideas. Connery said he wanted to play Henry Jones like Richard Francis Burton, a real-life explorer. He believed Henry should be a match for his son, telling Spielberg, "whatever Indy'd done, my character has done and my character has done it better." Connery signed to the film on March 25, 1988. He added the line, "She talks in her sleep," which was kept in the film because it was funny. In the original script, Henry telling Indiana about sleeping with Elsa happened later. Alex Hyde-White played Henry in the film's prologue, though his face was not shown and his lines were dubbed by Connery.

• Denholm Elliott played Marcus Brody, Indiana's clumsy English colleague and an old friend of Henry. Elliott returned to the role after Spielberg wanted to recapture the tone of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), following Elliott's absence in the darker Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984).

• Alison Doody played Elsa Schneider, an Austrian art professor and Indy's love interest who works with the Nazis. She tricks the Joneses but seems to have real feelings for Indy. Though Elsa is in her 30s in the film, Doody was 21 when she auditioned and was one of the first actresses to try for the role. Amanda Redman was offered the part but declined.

• John Rhys-Davies played Sallah, Indiana's friend and a professional excavator in Cairo. Like Elliott, Rhys-Davies returned to the role to recapture the spirit of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

• Julian Glover played Walter Donovan, a wealthy American businessman and grail hunter who sends the Joneses on their quest. Later, it is revealed he secretly works with the Nazis and wants immortality. He originally auditioned for the role of Vogel. Glover, who is English, used an American accent for the film but was unhappy with the result.

• Michael Byrne played Standartenführer Ernst Vogel, a brutal SS officer. Byrne and Ford had previously acted together in Force 10 from Navarone (1978), where they played a German and an American, respectively.

Kevork Malikyan portrayed Kazim, the leader of the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, an organization that protects the Holy Grail. Malikyan impressed Spielberg with his performance in Midnight Express (1978) and had auditioned for the role of Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark if a traffic jam had not delayed his meeting with Spielberg. Robert Eddison appeared as the Grail Knight, the guardian of the Grail who drank from the cup of Christ during the Crusades. Eddison was a stage and television veteran who had only appeared in a few films since the 1930s. Laurence Olivier was originally considered for the role of the Grail Knight but was too ill and died the same year the film was released.

Michael Sheard briefly appeared as Adolf Hitler, whom Jones meets at a book-burning rally in Berlin. Sheard could speak German and had played Hitler three times before. He also played the U-boat commander Oskar Schomburg in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the same scene, Ronald Lacey, who played SD agent Arnold Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark, appeared as Heinrich Himmler. Alexei Sayle played the fictional sultan of Hatay, while Paul Maxwell portrayed "the man with the Panama Hat" who took possession of the Cross of Coronado. Wrestler and stuntman Pat Roach, who played three roles in the previous two films, made a short cameo as the Nazi who accompanies Vogel to the Zeppelin. Roach was set to film a fight with Ford, but it was cut. In a deleted scene, Roach's agent boards a second biplane on the Zeppelin with a World War I flying ace (played by Frederick Jaeger), only for the pair to fall to their deaths after the flying ace makes a mistake. Richard Young played Garth, the leader of the tomb robbers who chased young Indiana Jones and later gave him his hat. Eugene Lipinski portrayed the mysterious agent G-Man, while Vernon Dobtcheff appeared as the butler of Castle Brunwald.

Production

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg planned to make three Indiana Jones movies since Lucas first proposed Raiders of the Lost Ark to Spielberg in 1977. However, by 1979, they agreed to make five films with Paramount Pictures. After mixed reactions to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg decided to finish the trilogy to honor his promise to Lucas. He wanted the film to feel similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark. The writers of Temple of Doom, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, did not return for the third film because they had other projects and were happy with their work on the second film. During the film’s development, Spielberg admitted he was trying to return to an earlier style of filmmaking. Because of his commitment to the project, he had to leave directing Big and Rain Man.

Lucas first suggested the movie should be about a haunted mansion. Diane Thomas, who wrote Romancing the Stone, created a script for this idea. Spielberg rejected it because it was too similar to Poltergeist, a movie he co-wrote and produced. Lucas introduced the idea of the Holy Grail in a scene set in Scotland, where the Grail would have a pagan background. The rest of the story would focus on a Christian artifact in Africa. Spielberg disliked the Grail idea, finding it too complicated, even after Lucas suggested giving it healing powers and the ability to grant immortality, like the Ark in the first film. In September 1984, Lucas wrote an eight-page story titled Indiana Jones and the Monkey King, followed by an 11-page outline. The story involved Indiana fighting a ghost in Scotland and finding the Fountain of Youth in Africa.

Chris Columbus, who wrote Gremlins, The Goonies, and Young Sherlock Holmes, was hired to write the script. His first draft, dated May 3, 1985, changed the main plot device to the Garden of Immortal Peaches. The story begins in 1937, with Indiana battling a ghost in Scotland. He travels to Mozambique to help Dr. Clare Clarke (a character similar to Katharine Hepburn), who discovers a 200-year-old pygmy. The pygmy is kidnapped by Nazis during a boat chase, and Indiana, Clare, and Scraggy Brier (an old friend) travel up the Zambezi River to rescue him. Indiana is killed in a battle but is brought back to life by the Monkey King. Other characters include a cannibalistic tribe, a Nazi with a mechanical arm, a stowaway student, and a pirate leader.

Columbus’s second draft, dated August 6, 1985, removed the stowaway and made the Monkey King a villain. The Monkey King forces Indiana and a bar owner named Dash to play chess with real people, disintegrating those captured. Indiana defeats the Monkey King, destroys his rod, and marries Clare. Location scouting in Africa began, but Spielberg and Lucas abandoned the Monkey King idea because it unfairly portrayed African people and was too unrealistic. Spielberg said it made him feel "too old to direct it." Columbus’s script was shared online in 1997 and mistakenly thought to be an early draft for the fourth film because it was dated 1995.

Unhappy with the direction, Spielberg suggested introducing Indiana’s father, Henry Jones, Sr. Lucas was unsure, believing the Grail should be the focus, but Spielberg argued the father-son relationship could be a strong theme. He hired Menno Meyjes, who worked on The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun, to write a new script starting January 1, 1986. Meyjes finished his script ten months later. It showed Indiana searching for his father in Montségur, where he meets a nun named Chantal. Indiana travels to Venice, takes the Orient Express to Istanbul, and continues to Petra, where he reunites with his father. Together, they find the Grail. In a later draft, Indiana finds his father in Krak des Chevaliers, the Nazi leader is a woman named Greta von Grimm, and Indiana defeats a demon with a dagger inscribed with "God is King." Both drafts include a prologue where adult Indiana retrieves an Aztec relic in Mexico.

Spielberg asked Jeffrey Boam, who wrote Innerspace, to rewrite the story. Boam worked with Lucas for two weeks, creating a version similar to the final film. He suggested Indiana should find his father in the middle of the story, not just at the end, to focus on the father-son relationship rather than the Grail itself. In Boam’s first draft, dated September 1987, the film is set in 1939. The prologue shows adult Indiana retrieving an Aztec relic in Mexico for a museum curator. Henry and Elsa (with dark hair) were searching for the Grail for the Chandler Foundation before Henry disappeared. The character Kazim is named Kemal, an agent of the Republic of Hatay. Kemal shoots Henry and dies drinking from the wrong chalice. The Grail Knight battles Indiana on horseback, and Vogel is crushed by a boulder while trying to steal the Grail.

Boam’s February 23, 1988, rewrite included ideas from actor Sean Connery. It featured the prologue eventually filmed. Because of mixed reactions to Empire of the Sun, which focused on a young boy, Lucas convinced Spielberg to show Indiana as a boy. Spielberg had the idea of making Indiana a Boy Scout. The 1912 prologue in the film references events in Indiana’s life. When Indiana cracks his bullwhip to defend himself against a lion, he accidentally scars his chin, a detail inspired by actor Harrison Ford’s real-life scar from a car accident. Indiana’s nickname comes from his pet Alaskan Malamute, referencing Lucas’s dog. The train carriage Indiana enters is named "Doctor Fantasy's Magic Caboose," a name used by producer Frank Marshall for magic tricks. Spielberg suggested the idea, Marshall created the false-bottomed box Indiana escapes through, and production designer Elliott Scott proposed filming the escape in one continuous shot. Spielberg wanted a scene of Henry with his umbrella, after causing a bird strike on a German plane, to resemble the film Ryan’s Daughter. Indiana’s mother, named Margaret in this version, dismisses him when he returns home with the Cross of Coronado, while his father is on a long-distance call. Walter Chandler of the Chandler Foundation appears but is not the main villain; he falls into a tank. Elsa introduces Indiana and Brody to a large Venetian family.

Themes

Steven Spielberg often includes stories about a son trying to understand a father who is not on good terms with him. This theme appears in films like E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Hook. These films, along with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Field of Dreams from 1989, explore relationships between fathers and sons and use religious symbols. Caryn James, who wrote for The New York Times, said these films show how modern ideas about spirituality sometimes connect the search for a father with the idea of finding God. She noted that in the film, Indiana Jones and his father are not focused on finding the Holy Grail or defeating enemies like the Nazis, but instead want to earn respect from each other in their personal journey. James compared the dramatic destruction of a temple in the film to the quieter, more meaningful conversation between Indiana Jones and his father at the end. She also mentioned that Indiana Jones's mother is not shown in the beginning of the film, as she is already dead before the story starts.

Release

The film's teaser trailer was shown in November 1988 along with Scrooged and The Naked Gun. Rob MacGregor wrote a book based on the movie, which was released in June 1989. The book sold enough copies to appear on the New York Times Best Seller list. MacGregor later wrote the first six Indiana Jones prequel novels during the 1990s. After the film was released, Harrison Ford gave Indiana's hat and jacket to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

No toys were made to promote the film, according to Larry Carlat, a senior editor at Children's Business. Instead, Lucasfilm promoted Indiana Jones as a lifestyle symbol, selling items like fedoras, shirts, jackets, and watches. Two video games based on the film were released by LucasArts in 1989: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game. A third game was created by Taito and released in 1991 for the Nintendo Entertainment System. In 2008, Ryder Windham wrote another book based on the movie, which was published by Scholastic to match the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Hasbro released toys based on The Last Crusade in July 2008.

The film was released in the United States and Canada on Wednesday, May 24, 1989, in 2,327 theaters. It earned a record $37,031,573 over the 4-day Memorial Day weekend. High ticket prices in some venues, such as $7 per ticket, helped increase the total. The film's 3-day opening weekend gross of $29,355,021 was later surpassed by Ghostbusters II and Batman, which earned more in their opening 3 days than The Last Crusade did in 4. The Last Crusade held the record for the highest Memorial Day weekend gross until 1994, when The Flintstones took it. It also had the largest opening weekend for a Harrison Ford film for eight years until Air Force One surpassed it in 1997. The film's Saturday gross of $11,181,429 was the first time a movie earned over $10 million in one day. It broke the record for the best seven-day performance with a total of $50.2 million, surpassing the $45.7 million earned by Temple of Doom in 1984 on 1,687 screens. After twelve days, the film earned $77 million, and it reached $100 million in a record nineteen days. In France, the film sold a million tickets within two and a half weeks. In the United Kingdom, it opened in three London theaters before expanding to 361 screens nationally two days later, setting an opening weekend record of £1,811,542 ($2,862,200), which beat the previous record set by Crocodile Dundee II the year before. The film remained number one in the United Kingdom for six weeks.

The film eventually earned $197.1 million in the United States and Canada and $277 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $474.2 million. At the time of its release, it was the 11th highest-grossing film of all time. Despite competition from Batman, The Last Crusade became the highest-grossing film worldwide in 1989. In North America, Batman took the top position. Among Indiana Jones films, The Last Crusade is the third-highest grossing in the United States and Canada, behind Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Raiders of the Lost Ark. However, when adjusted for inflation, it is also behind Temple of Doom. Box Office Mojo estimates that the film sold over 49 million tickets in North America. The film was re-released in 1992, earning $139,000.

Home media

The film was released with its two earlier films as part of a trilogy DVD box set in 2003. It included bonus features and a special documentary about how the films were made. The box set sold a large number of copies, with 600,000 copies sold in the United States on the first day of release. In 2012, the film was released on Blu-ray along with the other three films in the Indiana Jones film series at that time. In 2021, a remastered version of the film in 4K HDR was released on Ultra HD Blu-ray. This version was created using copies of the original film negatives and was part of a box set that included the four films in the Indiana Jones film series at that time.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has an approval rating of 84% from 136 reviews, with an average rating of 8 out of 10. The site's critics agree that the film is "lighter and more comedic than its predecessor," returning the series to a fast-paced adventure style similar to Raiders of the Lost Ark, while highlighting the strong teamwork between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Metacritic calculated an average score of 65 out of 100 from 14 critics, showing "generally favorable" reviews. Audiences who saw the film gave it an average grade of "A" on a scale from A+ to F.

Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel said the film "did not have the same new ideas as Raiders of the Lost Ark or the fast pacing of Temple of Doom," but called it an enjoyable ending to the trilogy. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it "the most exciting and clever Indiana Jones film." Richard Corliss of Time and David Ansen of Newsweek praised the film, as did Vincent Canby of The New York Times. Canby wrote that while the film felt like a "magically reconstituted B-movie from the past," it was "endearing and original," noting that the revelation about Indiana Jones having a father who was not proud of him was a "comic surprise." He said the film had "hilariously off-the-wall" scenes, like the circus train chase, and believed director Steven Spielberg was growing by focusing on the father-son relationship. Roger Ebert praised the scene showing Jones as a Boy Scout with the Cross of Coronado, comparing it to illustrations in 1940s adventure magazines. He said Spielberg created a feeling of "stumbling into amazing adventures while hiking with a Scout troop." The Hollywood Reporter said Sean Connery and Harrison Ford deserved Academy Award nominations.

The film was criticized by Andrew Sarris of The New York Observer, David Denby of New York magazine, Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic, and Georgia Brown of The Village Voice. Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Chicago Reader called the film "soulless." The Washington Post reviewed the film twice: Hal Hinson’s initial review was negative, calling it "mostly chases and dull explanations," though he praised Ford and Connery. He said the film’s focus on Jones’s character made him less mysterious and that Spielberg should not have tried to grow the story. Two days later, Desson Thomson wrote a positive review, praising the film’s action, adventure, and the depth of the father-son relationship.

In 2025, The Hollywood Reporter listed Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as having the best stunts of 1989.

Accolades

The film received the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing. It was also nominated for Best Original Score and Best Sound (Ben Burtt, Gary Summers, Shawn Murphy, and Tony Dawe). Connery was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Connery and the visual and sound effects teams were also nominated at the 43rd British Academy Film Awards. The film won the 1990 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and was nominated for Best Motion Picture Drama at the Young Artist Awards. John Williams's score received a Broadcast Music Incorporated Award and was nominated for a Grammy Award.

The prologue showing Jones as a young man inspired Lucas to create The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series. The series included Sean Patrick Flanery as the young adult Indiana and Corey Carrier as the 8- to 10-year-old Indiana. According to Lee Marrs, a writer for Dark Horse Comics, Lucasfilm once considered making a film continuation featuring Phoenix as a younger Jones, but these plans were canceled after Phoenix's death. The 13-year-old version of Jones played by Phoenix in the film inspired a series of young adult novels starting in 1990. By the ninth novel, the series became connected to the television show. German author Wolfgang Hohlbein included the prologue in one of his novels, where Jones meets the lead grave robber, named Jake, in 1943. The film's ending began the 1995 comic series Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny, which follows Jones and his father searching for the Holy Lance in Ireland in 1945. Spielberg wanted Connery to appear as Henry in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), but Connery declined because he had retired.

Petra's role in the film's climactic scenes helped make it a popular international tourist destination. Before the film was released, only a few thousand visitors visited Petra each year. Since then, the number has grown to nearly one million annually. Businesses near Petra highlight its connection to the film, and it is often included in travel guides for locations used in the film series. Jordan's tourism board mentions this connection on its website. In 2012, the satirical news site The Pan-Arabia Enquirer published a fake story claiming that Jordan's tourism board had officially renamed Petra "That Place from Indiana Jones" to match how people commonly refer to it.