In Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Sean Connery plays Indiana Jones’s father, Henry Jones Sr.
Henry Jones Sr. is a medievalist and Grail scholar whose lifelong obsession with the Holy Grail drives the film’s central quest. His relationship with his son is strained because both men have devoted themselves to scholarship while failing to communicate well. Their forced partnership gives the adventure a strong family-comedy element alongside its historical action.
Connery was widely associated with James Bond, making his casting especially resonant in a film that plays with the traditions of classic adventure cinema. Harrison Ford plays the adult Indiana Jones, and the two actors’ contrasting performances create much of the movie’s energy.
The film also includes River Phoenix as the teenage Indiana in its opening sequence. That younger version is not Henry Jones Sr.; Connery portrays the adult father throughout the main story.