RAIDERS NUMBER$
- 1 = Box-office rank among Indiana Jones franchise (adjusted for inflation)
- 1 = Rank among top-earning movies during opening weekend
- 1 = Rank among top-earning movies released by Paramount during 1981
- 1 = Rank among top-earning movies released during 1981 (summer season)
- 1 = Rank among top-earning movies released during 1981 (calendar year)
- 1 = Rank among top-earning movies released during 1981 (lifetime / retroactive)
- 1 = Rank among Paramount’s all-time top-earning movies at close of release
- 2 = Rank of the Indiana Jones character on AFI’s list of the 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains
- 3 = Peak all-time box-office chart position (gross, domestic)
- 4 = Box-office rank among Spielberg movies (adjusted for inflation)
- 4 = Rank among top-earning movies released during the 1980s
- 5 = Box-office rank among Harrison Ford movies (adjusted for inflation)
- 5 = Number of Academy Awards (four competitive + one special achievement)
- 5 = Peak all-time box-office chart position (rental, domestic)
- 8 = Number of Academy Award nominations
- 8 = Number of weeks nation’s top-grossing movie (Weeks 1, 6, 9-13, 26)
- 13 = Number of years Paramount Pictures’ top-earning film
- 22 = Rank on current list of all-time top-grossing movies (domestic, adjusted for inflation)
- 30 = Number of months between theatrical release and home-video release
- 57 = Number of weeks longest-running engagement played* (in a multiplex)
- 58 = Number of weeks longest-running engagement played* (in a single-screen theater)
- 60 = Rank on American Film Institute’s list of the 100 Greatest American Films
- 64 = Number of days to gross $100 million*
- 81 = Number of weeks longest-running engagement played* (in a market)
- 133 = Rank on current list of all-time top-grossing movies (domestic)
- 304 = Number of days to gross $200 million*
- 1,078 = Number of opening-week theaters
- 1,100,000 = Number of home video units sold in 1983/84*
- $39.95 = Suggested retail price of original home video release
- $3.1 million = Domestic box-office gross (2012 IMAX re-release)
- $8.3 million = Domestic box-office gross (opening weekend)
- $11.4 million = Domestic box-office gross (1983 re-release)
- $21.4 million = Domestic box-office gross (1982 re-release)
- $22.8 million = Production cost
- $68.5 million = Production cost (adjusted for inflation)
- $90.4 million = Domestic box-office rental* (as of 12/31/81)
- $112.0 million = Domestic box-office rental* (as of 12/31/82)
- $115.6 million = Domestic box-office rental* (as of 12/31/83)
- $125.3 million = Domestic box-office gross* (summer season)
- $141.7 million = International box-office gross*
- $209.6 million = Domestic box-office gross* (original release, 6/12/81-7/15/82)
- $231.0 million = Domestic box-office gross* (as of 12/30/82 when last print pulled from release)
- $242.4 million = Domestic box-office gross* (original + 82 & 83 re-releases)
- $245.5 million = Domestic box-office gross* (original + 82, 83 & 12 re-releases)
- $248.2 million = Domestic box-office gross (original + re-releases, special screenings & adjustments)
- $343.2 million = Domestic box-office rental (adjusted for inflation)
- $426.5 million = International box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
- $389.9 million = Worldwide box-office gross*
- $729.2 million = Domestic box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
- $1.2 billion = Worldwide box-office gross (adjusted for inflation)
*broke Paramount record
A SAMPLING OF MOVIE REVIEWER QUOTES
“The guys who made Jaws and Star Wars have done it again. It’s too good to be true.” – David Ansen, Newsweek
“Raiders of the Lost Ark is sensational. This awesomely entertaining adventure spectacle succeeds in fusing the most playful and exciting elements of Spielberg’s Jaws and Lucas’s Star Wars in a fresh format.” – Gary Arnold, The Washington Post
“I don’t know how strong is Paramount’s percentage in the distribution of Raiders of the Lost Ark, but of one thing I’m certain—Lucas and Spielberg have just opened up another goldmine.” – Arthur Knight, The Hollywood Reporter
“Raiders is a great movie, but there’s too much to it. Ghosts of George Lucas and Spielberg keep parading into view. The storyline on this movie ought to read, Raiders of the Lost Ark have Close Encounters of the Third Kind with Star Wars and Jaws while The Empire Strikes Back in 1941. The movie has heaps of everything—action, comedy, adventure, stunts. It’s razzle-dazzle entertainment. But who needs this much?” – Carol Olten, The San Diego Union
“Raiders of the Lost Ark is about as entertaining as a commercial movie can be.” – Gene Siskel, Chicago Tribune
“Raiders of the Lost Ark is the stuff that raucous Saturday matinees at the local Bijou once were made of, a crackerjack fantasy-adventure that shapes its pulp sensibilities and cliffhanging serial origins into an exhilarating escapist entertainment that will have broad-cased summer audiences in the palm of its hand. Even within this summer’s hot competitive environment, box office prospects are within the top rank.” – Stephen Klain, Variety
“The opening sequence, set in South America, with Indy Jones entering a forbidden temple and fending off traps, snares, poisoned darts, tarantulas, stone doors with metal teeth, and the biggest damn boulder you’ve ever seen, is so thrill-packed you don’t have time to breathe—or to enjoy yourself much, either…. Seeing Raiders is like being put through a Cuisinart—something has been done to us, but not to our benefit…. Kinesthetically, the film gets to you. It gets your heart thumping. But there’s no exhilaration in this dumb, motor excitement…. John Williams’ pounding score could be the music from any old Tarzan movie, though with a fuller orchestra and at ten times the volume. Like just about everything else in the picture that misses, the klunky music can be said to be intentional—to represent fidelity to the genre. Yet, with the manicured wide-screen images and the scale of this production, klunkiness sticks out in a way that it didn’t in the serials…. Kinesthetically, the film gets to you. It gets your heart thumping. But there’s no exhilaration in this dumb, motor excitement.” – Pauline Kael, The New Yorker
“Raiders of the Lost Ark is as wondrous and delightful as we like to pretend the movies of yesterday were. The adventure epic raises pulp movie-making to the level of an art form.” – Philip Wuntch, The Dallas Morning News
“Now, you have to wonder about two guys who want nothing more in life than to spend $20 million recreating the fantasies of their adolescence in hitherto unknown perfection. That’s essentially what Spielberg and Lucas have accomplished in Raiders. All the while marveling at the trumpeting triviality of it all, I found myself utterly exhilarated by this shrewdly sophisticated boys’ adventure.” – Pat Dowell, The Washington Times
“Pooling their talents for the first time on-screen, the creators of Star Wars and Close Encounters have turned out what is far and away the wittiest, most exhilarating and outrageous cliffhanger in the history of movie serials…. Many young filmmakers rob from past film classics, but few do it as cleverly and affectionately as Spielberg and Lucas…. If this is a movie made by people who know nothing of the world but movies—the most common and, I think, fallacious criticism of the Spielberg-Lucas school of filmmaking—it’s also a movie that resourcefully uses those classic influences to create its own magic.” – John Hartl, The Seattle Times
“The intricate stunts keep the kids gasping, and the adults do get a lot of laughs. But the predictability of it all, even touched with parody and love for all those old movies on which Lucas and Spielberg cut their teeth, brings diminished returns. I realize I’m expressing a minority point of view, judging from the cheers in the audience and the look on the face of a 12-year-old boy who sighed, ‘It’s wonderful!’ But I think Lucas and Spielberg missed the chance to deepen their adventure by creating something other than stock villainous Nazis.” – Judy Stone, San Francisco Chronicle
“Just when you’ve begun to lose hope in the magic of movies to entertain and enthrall, along comes Raiders of the Lost Ark. It thrills and scares and enraptures all in one splendid swoop. Here is film making at its best…. My advice is to rush out to see Raiders of the Lost Ark. The movie is destined to become a classic, since it wins your heart as it grabs your attention.” – Donna Chernin, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
“Raiders of the Lost Ark may not awaken the slumbering movie industry from its box office malaise. But if it doesn’t, nothing can.” – Jack Mathews, Detroit Free Press
“Director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas give us action and adventure in droves. But that’s about all they give us. The story is a simple one…. Star Wars fans may be somewhat disappointed to learn that Raiders of the Lost Ark doesn’t contain much in the way of special effects, though its supernatural finale is visually powerful.” – Owen Hardy, The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
“Raiders of the Lost Ark is this summer’s out-of-the-body experience, a movie of glorious imagination and breakneck speed that grabs you in the first shot, hurtles you through a series of incredible adventures, and deposits you outside the theater two hours later—breathless, dizzy, wrung-out, and with a silly grin on your face.” – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
“It’s a humdinger and is an action-packed love letter to the serials and Edgar Rice Burroughs adventure novels of the past.” – Ralph B. Patterson, Arkansas Gazette (Little Rock)
“Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the most deliriously funny, ingenious and stylish American adventure movies ever made.” – Vincent Canby, The New York Times
“Hurrah and hallelujah! It’s hats-in-the-air, heart-in-the-mouth time at the movies again.” – Sheila Benson, Los Angeles Times
“There’s a lot of fun and action, but nothing to chew on afterward.” – David Denby, New York Magazine
“Raiders has it all—the best two hours of pure entertainment anyone is going to find—a blockbuster on the order of Star Wars and Jaws.” – Richard Schickel, Time Magazine
“Spielberg has directed it all brilliantly, finding his own way to tell a 1930s story in 1981’s visual language…it’s the best movie he has ever made.” – Bernard Drew, Gannett News Service
“Raiders contains within five minutes more screams, thrills and action than can be accomplished by most movies in two hours.” – Ron Base, Toronto Star
“Remember when movies used to promise a thrill a minute? Well, Raiders nearly doubles that ratio. It makes you feel like you’re beating the speed limit just sitting still.” – Michael Sragow, Rolling Stone
“[Raiders of the Lost Ark is] no more substantial than cotton candy, but it’s easily the best piece of entertainment Hollywood has produced in 1981.” – Bruce McCabe, The Boston Globe
“The new collaboration by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg is such a smashingly well-done movie that it makes virtues out of juvenility and superficiality. No one need apologize for enjoying Raiders of the Lost Ark, because it is masterful cinema.” – George Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
