Indiana Jones: the story so far

The exhilarating Indiana Jones saga reaches its fifth instalment in the upcoming Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Harrison Ford returns to his most famous and celebrated role as the tenacious Indy who finds himself washed up in the 1960s American space race. However, there's no time to rest on one's laurels just yet as old Nazi enemy Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) is looking to get his hands on a powerful artifact.

It's up to Indy and his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) to stop Voller and his henchmen in their tracks. In classic Indiana Jones fashion, this will involve globe-trotting, hair-raising escapes and ventures into deadly subterranean tombs and crypts.

Need to catch up with Indy's story so far? Scroll down for the potted history of Dr. Jones's adventures to date.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

In 1936, globe-trotting adventurer Indiana Jones doubles up as a professor of archaeology
He is enlisted by the American military to help track down the mystical Ark of the Covenant
The Ark reputedly holds the fragments of The Ten Commandments that were bestowed upon Moses by God
Indy must recover the ark before Adolf Hitler's Nazi forces seize the relic and use it to become invincible

Indy teams up with his old flame Marion (Karen Allen) who possesses a medallion that points partway toward the Ark's location
In Cairo, Indy and his associate Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) use the Medallion to pinpoint the location of the Well of the Souls, where the Ark rests
Indy's archaeology rival René Belloq (Paul Freeman) is working with the Nazis to help track down the Ark for his own purposes
Having recovered the Ark from the Well of the Souls, Indy and Marion battle the Nazi forces after they take the artifact back into their possession

Belloq plans to test the Ark's abilities prior to opening it in front of Hitler, undertaking a secretive ceremony on a remote Mediterranean island
However, Belloq and Gestapo agent Toht (Ronald Lacey) underestimate the object's abilities and it eliminates all who stand before it
Indy, perceiving the might of God's wrath, closes his eyes and compels Marion to do the same, and they both survive the ordeal
The Ark is sequestered away in a top-secret military warehouse while Indy and Marion rekindle their dormant relationship

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

In 1935, prior to the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy escapes an assassination attempt by Chinese gangsters in Shanghai
He escapes with reluctant nightclub singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and pre-teen sidekick Short Round (Ke Huy Quan)
Forced to bail out of their plane over the Himalayas, the three find themselves in an Indian village filled marked by suffering and starvation
Indy is told by the village elder that the nearby Pankot Palace is hosting a resurgence of the evil Thuggee cult
The Thuggee stole the children of the village along with one of the sacred Sankara stones

Indy, Willie and Short Round travel to Pankot Palace where they are entertained by the Maharaja and his entourage
Following an attempt on his life, Indy discovers a secret passage leading to the subterranean base of the Thugee cult
The three witness a gruesome sacrificial ceremony undertaken by Thuggee high priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) in the name of the Hindu god Kali
Indy and his colleagues are captured, and Mola Ram reveals that the kidnapped children are being used as slaves to locate the remaining two Sankara stones

When Mola Ram possesses all five stones, the Thuggee will rise up to become all-powerful, and Indy is compelled to drink the cursed blood of Kali, brainwashing him to Mola Ram's cause
Short Round escapes, breaks Indy's curse and helps save Willie from being sacrificed in a lava pit
The three rescue the endangered child slaves and battle Mola Ram's forces to escape the temple via a mine cart
In a desperate final battle on a stricken rope bridge, Indy invokes the power of Shiva to reclaim one of the Sankara stones and send Mola Ram to his death in a river filled with man-eating crocodiles
Indy, Willie and Short Round triumphantly return to the village with the children in tow, as they reunite with their parents

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

In 1912, the young Indiana Jones (River Phoenix) intercepts a group of grave robbers while on a Boy Scout trip in Utah
Although he fails to recover the famed Cross of Coronado, Indy gains the respect of the lead robber who gifts him his fedora
The story then jumps ahead to 1938 when Indy finally recovers the Cross from its unscrupulous new owner

Back in America, Indy is alerted to the possible resting place of the Holy Grail by wealthy collector Walter Donovan
Indy recommends that his estranged father Henry Jones (Sean Connery) picks up the search, but Donovan informs Indiana that his father has vanished
On the search for his father, Indy travels to Venice with his close colleague Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot) and they meet colleague Elsa Schneider (Allison Doody)
A series of clues from Henry's diary eventually point the way toward Austria where Indy's dad is being held by the Nazis

Elsa reveals herself to be an insurgent traitor working with SS agent Vogel (Michael Byrne) and the devious Donovan
Teaming up with his father, Indy escapes Austria and eventually makes his way to Iskendurin where Marcus has been intercepted by the Nazi forces in anticipation of locating the Grail's final resting place
Following a dramatic tank battle, Indy and his allies, including Sallah, kill Vogel and pursue Donovan's men to the Canyon of the Crescent Moon

Inside the Canyon, a series of booby traps and riddles point the way toward the Grail
Indy is compelled to undertake the challenge after his father is mortally wounded by Donovan
Indy makes his way to a cave populated by an ailing Grail Knight who warns him that the wrong choice from a selection of false grails will be fatal
Donovan arrives and makes a poor choice, disintegrating into nothing

Indiana, however, correctly identifies the wooden cup of a carpenter and takes the Grail back to his father, restoring him back to health
With the temple collapsing, Elsa is killed and Indy and his friends escape safely, riding off into the sunset

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

In 1957, Indiana Jones and his colleague Mac (Ray Winstone) are kidnapped by Soviet agents commanded by scientist Colonel Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett)
Spalko directs Jones toward a top-secret hangar at Area 51 where an alien corpse is uncovered from a crate
Following Mac's betrayal, Indy escapes and, having survived a nuclear test by hiding in a fridge, returns to his college job where he's greeted by young greaser Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf)

Mutt informs Indy that his mentor Oxley (John Hurt), a former colleague of Indiana's, has been kidnapped in Peru
Oxley was on the search for a mystical crystal skull, possibly of alien origin, in the Peruvian jungle
Pursued by Soviet agents, Indy and Mutt venture to Peru where they follow Oxley's instructions and unearth the crystal skull

Indy and Mutt are intercepted by Spalko's men and taken into the jungle where Spalko attempts to use the skull's telepathic abilities to get inside Indy's mind
When he resists, Spalko reveals that she has also kidnapped Indy's former love Marion Ravenwood
Marion then reveals that Mutt is her son and, even more surprisingly, that he is also Indiana's son (official name, Henry Jones III)

Escaping the Soviets, Indy, Marion, Mutt and Oxley, who has gone mad via the skull's influence, make their way toward the lost city of Akator
This is where the crystal skull is rumoured to have originated from and Spalko is in hot pursuit
In the bowels of Akator, the group discovers thirteen alien skeletons, one of which is missing a head, and Spalko places the crystal skull onto the body
The thirteen skeletons coalesce into one living alien that overloads Spalko's mind with knowledge, killing her as the remaining Soviets are sucked into a spaceship
Indy and Marion return to America where they eventually get married