The main adventure in Raiders of the Lost Ark is set in 1936. Indiana Jones races against Nazi forces to locate the Ark of the Covenant, traveling from the United States to Nepal and Egypt during the years before World War II.
The film opens with Jones recovering a golden idol from a booby-trapped temple in Peru. After returning home, he is recruited by Army Intelligence agents when they learn that German archaeologists are excavating in Tanis, Egypt. Jones then reunites with Marion Ravenwood and works with Sallah to find the Ark before the Nazis can claim it.
Raiders was released in 1981 but deliberately evokes the cliffhanger adventure serials of the 1930s and 1940s. That period setting explains the film’s globe-trotting archaeologist, Nazi villains, air travel, desert excavations, and spectacular truck chase. The movie’s release year is therefore not its story year—a frequent source of confusion in trivia questions.
It was the first Indiana Jones feature and became one of 1981’s highest-grossing films. The Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1999.