Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 1984. Directed by Steven Spielberg

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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 1984. USA. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Courtesy of Photofest

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 1984. USA. Directed by Steven Spielberg. With Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan. 35mm. 104 min.

Faced with the unenviable task of following up Raiders of the Lost Ark, director Steven Spielberg and Indiana Jones creator George Lucas opted for a South Asia–set 1930s prequel, switching out Nazi occultists with Indian child traffickers. After surviving an assassination attempt at the hands of the Shanghai Triad, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), his orphan sidekick Short Round (Ke Huy Quan, in a star-making debut performance), and the nightclub singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) crash-land in the fictional village of Mayapore, India. There, villagers ask Jones to retrieve a mystical stone from a cult that has been kidnapping their children, rumored to be lorded over by the high priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri). Fearlessly grotesque, full of hilarious non sequiturs, and terrifying for multiple generations of children, Temple of Doom more than delivers on the mile-a-minute thrill-ride standard established by Raiders; it’s not hard to understand why the film helped bring about the establishment of the PG-13 rating by the MPAA.

This film accompanies A View from the Vaults: The 1980s.

Past events

Sun, Apr 5, 1:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1
Fri, Apr 3, 7:30 p.m.

MoMA, Floor T1, Theater 1

The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1

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